Taliban offensive: Afghanistan asks for a break in deportation

After the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban are on the advance. You are trying to conquer more and more areas. That is why Kabul has asked Germany to suspend the deportation of compatriots.

In view of the advance of the radical Islamic Taliban, Afghanistan has asked the German government to suspend the deportation of compatriots from Germany.

The government in Kabul asked European states last weekend to suspend returns to the crisis country for three months. “This request has also been received by us in Germany, and we are now checking it,” said a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The federal government will decide on this “promptly” and will also seek talks with the other EU states and with the government in Kabul.

No change in deportation practice at the moment

The federal government is currently not planning to change its deportation practice. “Those who do not get a right of residence in Germany should leave our country again,” said government spokesman Steffen Seibert.

The decision to deport continues to be made “on the basis of constantly updated, very precise monitoring of the situation” in the countries of origin, he said. The Federal Foreign Office announced a new report on the security situation in Afghanistan this month. On this basis, the question of deportation will then be decided “how to proceed,” said Seibert.

Last Wednesday, a plane with 27 deported men on board arrived in Kabul. Most of them had been noticed with criminal offenses in Germany.

Taliban violence and Corona

Because of the increasing violence of the militant Islamist Taliban and rising corona infections, the repatriation of rejected asylum seekers is currently a cause for concern, according to a statement by the Afghan ministry responsible for refugees. There are also concerns about a growing number of people seeking asylum abroad and on the run in the country itself.

The security situation has worsened since the international troops began to withdraw from Afghanistan. In several offensives, the Taliban have conquered around a quarter of the districts in the country, many of them in northern Afghanistan.

Taliban are taking more and more cities

The fighters have invaded several provincial capitals or already control parts of the cities. This was confirmed by local officials from the dpa news agency.

In the city of Gasni in the southeast of the country, the Taliban controlled two police districts, it said. In Faisabad in the northeast, they have already captured a police district. They could have been expelled from other parts of the city by security forces. In the western city of Kala-e Nau, which the Islamists attacked the previous week, they are present in some parts of the city and engaged in sporadic skirmishes with the security forces, said provincial councils. Furthermore, residents would flee the city every day.

The provincial capital Kandahar in the south of the country has also been under pressure in the past few days. There, the security forces were apparently able to repel the attacks for the time being.