Deportations from Germany have risen again after a downturn during the pandemic. The Left Party has demanded an end to 'cynical policies'.
The number of people deported from Germany is rising following a significant drop due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first six months of this year, 5,688 people were deported from Germany, compared with 4,616 in the first half of 2020, according to the interior ministry.
Federal government figures seen by the press agency epd show that 140 Afghans were among those deported in the first half of the year. Germany announced a suspension of deportations to Afghanistan on August 11 as the Taliban took over the country. Nearly 30,000 Afghans in Germany were due for deportation, the interior ministry said on August 12.
In the figures for the fist six months of 2021, minors under 18 years of age made up around 15% (904) of the total number deported.
Most deportees were returned to Georgia (541), Albania (456) and Serbia (300). Pakistan also took back 241 people, according to epd.
Almost half of the deportees were returned to their country of origin or to a third country. The vast majority were returned on flights which left from Frankfurt, Düsseldorf or Berlin.
Deportations suspended due to pandemic
From 2015 to 2019, Germany sent back between 20,000 and 25,000 people to their country of origin or to other EU countries. But following the onset of the pandemic, deportations dropped substantially.
In early 2020, many countries closed their borders and planes were grounded, impacting on migrants’ mobility and resulting in a temporary halt to deportations.
Germany ceased deportations in mid-March 2020. Controversially, it resumed deportations to Afghanistan in December, 2020. Over 1,000 Afghans have been deported from Germany since 2016.
'Cynical policy'
In response to the latest figures, Ulla Jelpke, spokesperson on domestic affairs for the socialist Left Party, said the federal and state governments were making every effort to get more people out of the country again "with no consideration of the situations of those affected."
Jelpke added that reports about cruel family separations and about people who had lived in Germany for decades being deported were mounting up once again and called for "an end to the cynical policy and a fundamental rethink."
"No more sending people back to war, hopelessness and misery! Yes to effective residency laws," Jelpke said.
With KNA, epd