Rights activists irate as Afghan refugees sent packing

KABUL: German human rights activists sharply criticised plans to deport Afghan refugees aboard a flight leaving Dusseldorf last night, pointing to the weekend hotel attack in Kabul that claimed at least 20 lives as grounds for halting the deportation.

The attack meant that the Taliban “has once again demonstrated that they can mount an attack in Kabul anywhere at any time and given the lie to the German refugee authorities’ assertion that there are safe areas in the country,” the Pro Asyl non-governmental organisation said.

According to activists in Germany, the ninth flight carrying refugees back to Afghanistan was scheduled to leave yesterday evening and was due to arrive at 6.50am today.

The Pro Asyl statement noted that the German Foreign Office had failed to provide a situation report on Afghanistan since the autumn of 2016.

The absence of the reassessment of the security situation meant that the Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and the courts were not in possession of the most recent information from an official German body, it said.

In an interview, the deputy head of the GdP police union, Joerg Radek, called for 15000 more police officers to be employed to process deportations.

“If you take into account that we carried out a total of 243 deportations like this in 2016 alone, not only to Afghanistan, but to the Balkans and West Africa, then you will see the significance of deportations in police work,” Radek said. – dpa