A plane with 155 Afghan nationals landed in Berlin on Tuesday morning (February 25). The German news magazine Spiegel reported that a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community (BMI, interior ministry) confirmed the arrival of the flight.  

More than half of the passengers on the flight were individuals from the federal admission program for particularly vulnerable people from Afghanistan, as the spokesperson told Spiegel. The plane had taken off from Islamabad, Pakistan. The next flight from Pakistan with Afghan nationals is expected to arrive in Germany next month.   

In 2023, the German government temporarily suspended the processing of admission applications for Afghans seeking international protection through its federal admissions program due to concerns about potential system abuse.

Special program for Afghans at risk 

In response to the Taliban takeover in 2021, Germany identified and approved an estimated 37,000 at-risk Afghans and their family members for entry into Germany. According to the details on the BMI website, included in the Federal Admissions Program for Afghans at risk are Afghans who have been identified by the German Government with the help of civil society as "being especially vulnerable and who are at great personal risk due to their commitment to a democratic Afghanistan". These include Afghan local employees and their family members.

In 2023, two Afghan men who identified as queer were documented as the first Afghan nationals to arrive in Germany under the program. The couple was reported to have been transferred and settled in Bremen, about 312 kilometers (194 miles) west of the capital, Berlin.

Overall, Afghans are among the largest nationalities seeking protection in the EU. In Germany, more than 53,000 asylum applications were filed by Afghan nationals in 2023, surpassed only by applications from Syria and Turkey, according to data from the Asylum Information Database shows.

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Deportations from Germany to Kabul 

Last August, the German government implemented its first deportation flight following the Taliban takeover. The flight carried 28 Afghan nationals, all of whom were convicted offenders who had no right to stay in Germany and against whom deportation orders had been issued, it was reported then.

While this flight was seen as a one-time incident, calls for Germany to continue deportation flights to Afghanistan again gained traction ahead of the German snap elections which took place on February 23. Mounting calls for deportation further intensified after an Afghan national was identified as the main suspect involved in driving a car into a crowd in Munich, resulting in the death of a mother and her child.

However, deportation flights would mean coordination with the Taliban, who currently rule over Afghanistan. Since the Taliban took back power in Afghanistan in 2021, diplomatic relations between Germany -- as well as other Western countries -- and Afghanistan have been at a standstill.

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