exclusive
More than 14,000 endangered people from Afghanistan have been waiting for months to emigrate to Germany, despite being admitted. Dozens of Afghans are stuck in Pakistan and Iran because of the suspended federal admissions program.
12,600 people who have been accepted are currently waiting in Afghanistan for visas and to leave the country. This was confirmed by the Foreign Office at the request of NDR info. 1,480 threatened by the Taliban regime are already in Iran and Pakistan. Several thousand people at risk, according to the ministry a number “in the mid-four-digit range,” were suggested by German non-governmental organizations for the federal admissions program.
At the end of March, the federal government temporarily stopped issuing visas and entry to particularly vulnerable people from Afghanistan via the federal admissions program, for example for women’s and human rights activists, opponents of the regime, members of persecuted minorities or employees of the government that fell in 2021.
According to the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Government has “indications of possible attempts at abuse in the context of the ongoing admission procedures from Afghanistan”. Only in one individual case can it be assumed that it was a question of a dangerous person.
According to a ministry spokeswoman, these attempts at abuse were discovered and stopped during the visa process. Nevertheless, the departure of people with admission promises was completely suspended, including former local employees of the federal government.
Families stranded in Pakistan and Iran
In Pakistan and Iran, Afghan families who have been accepted are currently waiting in vain for their visas to travel to Germany. Some have become homeless in the meantime, cannot return to Afghanistan because of threats from the Taliban, are not allowed to go to Germany and have no livelihood in Pakistan. Among those waiting are people threatened with death by the Taliban.
The Afghan politician Feroza Ahmadzai, for example, received a letter of acceptance from the Federal Ministry of the Interior last August. For ten years, the Pashtun woman had worked on the council of the Afghan province of Logar, primarily for women’s rights, and had received written death threats from the Taliban.
Corresponding documents are available NDR info present, but cannot be verified beyond doubt as to their authenticity. In a letter, the head of Logar’s military commission described Feroza Ahmadzai as a “criminal and mercenary” who should “receive her just punishment”. “If you catch her, then she shall be executed.”
Together with her husband, a former advisor in the Kabul presidential palace, and five small children, the 43-year-old was in October 2022 for talks at the German embassy in Islamabad. One of them with an employee of the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
The German development aid organization GIZ accommodated the Afghan family in a hotel in Pakistan’s capital for five months on behalf of and at the expense of the German government. There was repeated contact about possible flights to emigrate to Germany.
Acceptance of admission surprisingly stopped
At the end of March of this year, however, the confirmation of admission was surprisingly revoked and without any reason being given. The family cannot explain this and repeatedly asked to speak to the German authorities. “There is absolutely no way back to Afghanistan, we will be executed there,” said Feroza Ahmadzai. “My family was threatened, my brother and my father were abducted and kidnapped.”
The Foreign Office replied NDR info as did the Federal Ministry of the Interior in response to multiple inquiries that “for reasons of privacy protection and data protection, it is fundamentally unable to comment on individual cases”.
According to the AA, the federal government is working on “the fastest possible resumption of departures from Afghanistan and visa processing for Afghans who have been accepted”. One is confident “that we can implement the adapted security mechanisms, which also include security interviews, in the process in the next few weeks and can accordingly resume the process”.
However, it will no longer be possible to issue visas in the Iranian capital, Tehran, so that the German embassy in Islamabad, according to those involved in the procedure, will become a bottleneck for applicants.
criticism of aid organizations
Aid organizations and the opposition have sharply criticized the ban on the entry of vulnerable people from Afghanistan. Axel Steier, founder of Mission Lifeline said NDR info: “We put money into it for so many years, we made promises to people. We promised people the future and now they are leaving them out in the rain. That is incomprehensible.”
The member of parliament for the left, Clara Bünger, sees “no indications why the on-site verification system should be wrong” because it worked in uncovering the attempts at abuse. According to Bünger, every day counts because those affected are in very real danger. “It can also endanger life, as we have seen in the past.”
With her feminist foreign policy, Annalena Baerbock is a role model for Feroza Ahmadzai. The only thing left for the Afghan politician to do is to appeal to the Greens and her cabinet colleague Nancy Faeser from the SPD: “As a mother and wife, I am asking the interior minister and the foreign minister for help and attention. Please don’t forget us.”