FRANKFURT: Germany said it resumed flying convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country on Friday, as Berlin reverses a policy to hold off on deportations to the Taliban-ruled country.
The coalition government has come under pressure to take a tougher stance on migration after a deadly stabbing linked to Daesh at a city festival a week ago and after an Afghan man stabbed a German policeman to death in a knife attack in June.
Spiegel magazine reported that a Kabul-bound flight took off from Leipzig early on Friday with 28 convicted criminals onboard after months of secret negotiations with mediator Qatar.
The government said in a statement it thanked “key regional partners” for their support and added that more such deportations were being worked on.
Berlin had stopped returning people to Afghanistan on human rights concerns after the Taliban took power in 2021.
Two eastern regional states, where the anti-immigration AfD party is topping polls, will hold elections on Sunday.
Germany said in June it was again considering deporting Afghan migrants who pose a security threat, following the police officer’s killing in the city of Mannheim.
Negotiating directly with the Taliban, some of whose officials are under international sanctions, is widely seen as problematic.
Germany confirms it has resumed deportations to Afghanistan
https://arab.news/69puy
Germany confirms it has resumed deportations to Afghanistan
- The coalition government has come under pressure to take a tougher stance on migration
- Berlin had stopped returning people to Afghanistan on human rights concerns after the Taliban took power in 2021
Russia bombards Kyiv as Ukraine issues countrywide alert
- Ukraine’s air force warned “all of Ukraine is under a missile threat” after confirming Russian bombers were airborne
KYIV, Ukraine: Russian strikes on Ukraine’s capital and its suburbs killed at least three people, Kyiv’s mayor said Friday as the air force issued a countrywide missile warning.
“Three people died in the capital. Six people were wounded. Three of them were hospitalized,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko posted on Telegram.
Regional governor Mykola Kalashnyk urged people to stay in shelters until the air raid sirens lifted.
Ukraine’s air force warned “all of Ukraine is under a missile threat” after confirming Russian bombers were airborne.
In the western city of Lviv, the mayor said “critical infrastructure” was hit.
“All relevant services are working on the site, the fire is being extinguished,” Mayor Andriy Sadovy said.
The latest barrage comes after the US Embassy in Kyiv warned Thursday that a “potentially significant air attack” could occur at any time within the next several days.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had echoed the rare warning in his evening address.
Hours before the attack, Moscow had slammed a post-war plan for European peacekeepers to be deployed to Ukraine and branded Kyiv and its allies an “axis of war.”
European leaders and US envoys have been engaged in a flurry of diplomacy seeking to finalize a plan to end the almost four-year-long conflict.
In its latest iteration, the proposal’s post-war guarantees for Ukraine include a US-led monitoring mechanism and a European multinational force to be deployed once the fighting stops.
Zelensky said Thursday that an agreement was “essentially ready for finalization at the highest level with the President of the United States” following talks between envoys in Paris this week.
Specific details, including about the size of the force and how it would engage, have not been made public.
