The German government does not have imminent plans for deportation flights to Afghanistan for Afghan immigrants who have committed crimes in Germany, according to a top spokesman in Berlin on Friday.
Germany has struggled to deport people to Afghanistan since the hard-line Islamist Taliban regime seized power there in 2021, something that has become a major political issue in the wake of attacks carried out in Germany by Afghan citizens.
In Munich on Thursday, a 24-year-old Afghan citizen who had arrived in Germany as an asylum seeker in 2016 intentionally rammed his car into a trade union demonstration, injuring at least three dozen people.
German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said on Friday that while officials are working intensively to clear the way for further deportations to Afghanistan, the timing of any such flights remain unclear.
At the end of August 2024, a deportation flight took off from Germany to Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban seized power three years ago. On board were 28 Afghan citizens who had been convicted of criminal offences in Germany and were subject to deportation orders.
After the attack in Munich on Thursday, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser emphasized that deportations to Afghanistan would continue, but said it’s difficult to implement as it requires either direct or indirect cooperation with the Taliban regime.
Flowers and candles are placed at the site where a car crashed into a Ver.di labor union demonstration the day before, injuring thirty people. Daniel Löb/dpa
