Key Points
- Chancellor Merz’s government aims to scrap resettlement programmes.
- Women activists, lawyers, journalists were earlier on human rights list.
- Interior Minister Dobrindt calls earlier commitments “legacy issues.”
- 130 local staff informed by GIZ they won’t be accepted.
- Around 1,000 Afghans await relocation under fourth resettlement programme.
- Human rights groups urge Germany to honour commitments immediately.
ISLAMABAD: Germany’s Interior Ministry spokesperson Sonja Kock has said that Afghans who had been told they could move to Germany will be informed in the coming days “that there is no longer any political interest in their admission,” DW reports.
This decision affects 640 people currently in Pakistan who had been waiting for relocation to Germany. Many of them had already been promised asylum amid fears of persecution and reprisals from the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Resettlement programme reversed
The pledge is being revoked as Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government seeks to scrap resettlement programmes “as far as possible.” The plan was agreed upon by the coalition of Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), and Social Democrats earlier this year.
Previously, the government, made up of Social Democrats, Greens (the centre-left political party in Germany), and Liberals, had promised to accept women’s rights activists, lawyers, journalists, and other opposition figures from Afghanistan under the “human rights list” and the “bridging list.”
Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has described these earlier commitments as “legacy issues” and has refused to uphold them following the Taliban’s takeover in 2021.
GIZ sends rejection notices
The third resettlement programme for Afghans who worked for German ministries has now also been affected. Last week, around 130 local staff and their families were informed via email from the German development agency GIZ that they would no longer be accepted.
The decisive line in the email reads: “After further detailed examination, it has been decided that there are no grounds for granting admission to Germany under Section 22 of the Residence Act.”
Kock confirmed that only 90 of the remaining 220 local staff can still claim admission.
Dobrindt told DW that he intends to honour legally binding commitments for local staff but emphasised that admission requires passing security checks.
According to government data, Germany has accepted 4,000 local staff and nearly 15,000 family members from 2021 until April 2025.
Uncertainty mounts in Pakistan
With Pakistani authorities reportedly planning to repatriate Afghans to their homeland at the end of the year, uncertainty is escalating. Around 1,000 more Afghans are waiting to leave Pakistan under the fourth resettlement programme.
Only those who successfully sue in German administrative courts to enforce their admission commitments will now be allowed to relocate. So far, 84 lawsuits have succeeded and 195 are still pending, with more in preparation.
Eva Beyer, spokesperson for the aid group Kabul-Luftbrücke, told DW that, “This is an unbelievable state of uncertainty in which some people have been living for months, some even for years. This uncertainty alone is psychological torture.”
Over the past four years, around 3,500 commitments were made under the programme, primarily for former employees of German NGOs at risk following the Taliban’s rise.
Calls for immediate action
About 250 organisations, including Human Rights Watch, Pro Asyl, and Brot für die Welt, have sent an open letter urging Interior Minister Dobrindt to bring endangered Afghan families to Germany before year-end without bureaucratic delays.
Helen Rezene, co-director of Pro Asyl, described fulfilling these promises as a “litmus test for the German government’s reliability, credibility, and humanity,” according to DW.
Kock assured that affected individuals would not be immediately homeless, as they could remain in rented guesthouses in Pakistan while the Afghanistan-Pakistan border remains closed. The German government is also offering flights back to Kabul, though the security situation there remains uncertain.
