KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The German government has announced that it has deported two “criminal migrants” to Afghanistan in recent days.
According to Deutsche Welle, these individuals were transferred from a prison in Hamburg to the airport and then sent to Kabul on a regular flight via Istanbul.
Authorities in Hamburg said that one of the individuals is a 30-year-old man who had been convicted of crimes such as causing bodily harm and assaulting law enforcement officers.
According to them, the second individual is a 32-year-old man who was found guilty of charges including repeated assault, armed robbery, and threats.
Over the past year, Germany has, through direct negotiations with the Taliban, facilitated the deportation of “criminal migrants” to Afghanistan and has repeatedly sent individuals to Kabul on regular flights.
Prior to this, the country had deported migrants who had committed crimes to Afghanistan through mediation by Qatar.
Germany has also accepted two representatives of the Taliban as consular staff to facilitate deportations to Afghanistan at its embassy in Berlin and the Afghan consulate in Munich.
Germany halted deportations to Afghanistan and closed its embassy in Kabul after the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Deportations of convicted Afghans resumed in 2024 under the previous government led by Olaf Scholz, with 28 sent via third countries.
The current government, which took office in May 2025, has made direct deportations of Afghan criminals a priority and held talks with the Taliban in Qatar and Kabul to enable regular flights.
In mid-2025, authorities deported 81 convicted Afghan men in an operation coordinated through Qatar, the first deportation under the current government.
Despite resuming deportations, Berlin does not officially recognize the Taliban regime and has no formal diplomatic relations with Kabul.
As reported by Reuters, Dobrindt, a senior member of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said that Berlin must take a more direct approach.
Merz’s conservative bloc has made tough migration policies a central part of its platform, pledging to deport criminals to Afghanistan and Syria, and halt special admission programs for Afghan nationals who worked with German agencies during the NATO mission.
Migration has become a defining political issue in Germany, particularly following a rise in far-right sentiment and a series of violent incidents involving asylum seekers. According to Germany’s federal migration office, Syrians and Afghans make up the largest groups of asylum applicants this year, with 76,765 Syrians and 34,149 Afghans applying for asylum in 2024.
