Govt expects to send 12,000 back to Afghanistan

intern

November 17, 2016 3:09 PM

A document reviewed on Thursday in Berlin said that the repatriation has become imperative.

An Afghan refugee carries his belongings as he and his family wait to board a bus, following the arrival of refugees and migrants by the Blue Star Patmos passenger ferry from the island of Lesbos at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Greece, October 14, 2015. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

A document from German government has revealed that more than 12,000 Afghan migrants to Germany are to be sent back to their home country.

The document reviewed on Thursday in Berlin said that the repatriation has become imperative because large parts of Afghanistan are considered safe.

The document served as an explanation by the government to a question posed by the hard-left Die Linke (The Left) party.

It states that about 5 per cent of the 247,000 Afghans who had reached Germany by the end of September would likely be sent home because their safety can be guaranteed in Afghanistan’s larger cities.

The government said in a statement that it expected some of the migrants would return of their own accord, while some of the removals might be by force.

A critic said the question of forcibly repatriating people to Afghanistan is controversial, since there are many questions about how safe the country is, given regular Taliban attacks.

He recalls that just last week, four people died when Taliban forces attacked the German consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif.

He said so far this year, 27 Afghans have been deported after their asylum applications were rejected, while nine were deported in 2015.

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