In late March, the German government temporarily halted the Federal Reception Program for Afghans threatened with violence following reports of irregularities. Now the program has officially resumed as of this week.
For the past few months, some of Afghanistan's most vulnerable people were blocked from coming to Germany -- even if they had been promised a way out of their country.
Human rights activists, opponents of the regime, members of persecuted minorities and employees of the government, which was overthrown by the Taliban in 2021, were barred from entering Germany for three months, as indications "of possible attempts to abuse the ongoing admission procedures" were being examined, according to the Federal Foreign Office.
Now that a series of remedies were applied to fix these irregularities, the program has officially resumed as of this week.
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Preferential order for Afghans in Iran and Pakistan
Among other things, all applicants will now have to be questioned for several hours by experts from Germany’s security agencies at the German embassy in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad before a visa can be issued.
Currently, there are 1,480 Afghans on the waiting list in Pakistan and Iran alone, according to the Foreign Office. Preferential treatment will reportedly be given to those in Pakistan and Iran, who have had to wait for the past few months, as flights to Germany were suspended.
However, applicants in Iran will first have to be flown to Islamabad for this mandatory interview.
After all applicants in Pakistan and Iran are processed, the program will turn to the 12,600 people still living in Afghanistan whose cases have already been agreed in principle.
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Program slow to resume
Aid organizations assume, however, that this backlog of more than 14,000 cases will take a long time to process.
Furthermore, there is no personnel in Islamabad yet to conduct these interviews, which is likely to result in further delays.
It is also unclear, how many security experts will be sent to Islamabad to hold the interviews, and how many of these can be performed each day. Some media reports claim that only five interviews can be performed daily, which would mean that roughly only 100 people could be processed each month.
The Federal Reception Program, launched in October 2022, allows for a total of up to 1,000 people to leave for Germany per month if their case has been fully processed. This includes anyone considered to be particularly endangered as well as their relatives.
However, no Afghans have yet come to Germany through the program.
The government says it wants to build up capacities to meet the rate of 1,000 persons monthly in the coming months.
Read more: Report: 14,000 people from Afghanistan still waiting for transfer to Germany