KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Following months of negotiations and talks, the German government began deporting Afghan nationals who committed crimes, sending 28 individuals back to Afghanistan on Friday, August 30.
As reported by German Deutsche Welle (DW), the flight carrying Afghan nationals departed from Leipzig/Halle Airport for Kabul, marking the first deportation of Afghans since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.
According to the report, these individuals were brought from various German states in recent months and sent back to Afghanistan via a Qatar Airways charter jet on Friday morning.
“These were Afghan nationals, all of whom were convicted offenders who had no right to stay in Germany and against whom deportation orders had been issued,” government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit was quoted as saying in the report.
The German government, as noted in the report, expressed gratitude to “key regional partners” for their support in facilitating the deportation and emphasized that more deportations are planned for the future.
According to the German news outlet Der Spiegel, the deportation followed two months of secret negotiations with Qatar as a mediator, as Germany has no diplomatic relations with the Taliban.
Deportations of Afghan immigrants from Germany have been entirely suspended since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021. However, following recent deadly attacks by Afghan immigrants on German citizens, the debate over resuming expulsions has reignited in the country.
After the deadly knife attack by an Afghan migrant in Mannheim at the end of May, which resulted in the death of a police officer and injuries to four civilians, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that deportations of the most dangerous criminals to Afghanistan and Syria would be possible again.
Earlier in June, German police reported the arrest of another young Afghan immigrant on charges of attacking and injuring a Ukrainian woman with a knife in Frankfurt.
Following these incidents, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser announced a plan to deport Afghan citizens living in Germany who have committed serious crimes in recent years.
“We are doing everything possible to consistently deport Islamist perpetrators of violence,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said last month. “We are confidentially negotiating with several governments to reinstate these deportations to Afghanistan and Syria,” she added.
This comes as the Taliban authorities previously urged Germany to protect the rights of Afghan migrants and prevent their deportation to other countries.
The Taliban Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called on Germany to address the issue “through normal consular engagement and an appropriate mechanism based on bilateral agreements.”
