The number of police officers accompanying deportation flights in Germany has nearly doubled in four years, despite overall deportations decreasing.

There were nearly 11,000 police officers on deportation flights in 2018, compared with 5,841 in 2014 — a jump of 5,639 in a four-year period, reported the German newspaper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ).

During the same time period the total number of deportations has fallen — the German government told the NOZ that deportations had decreased from 10,787 in 2015 to 7,987 in 2018.

Between January and October 2019 alone a total of 11,480 police personnel traveled on deportation flights, compared with 11,000 from the same time period a year before.

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Why more police officers?

The German Interior Ministry told the NOZ that the number of police required on flights had risen "to ensure the safety onboard the airplane." A safety assessment is carried out for each individual deportation.

A further reason for the rise in police deployment for deportation flights is that more deportees are being flown to long-haul destinations in Africa or Asia.

The NOZ reported that in 2018 there were 439 deportation flights heading to Morocco and 283 flights with Afghanistan as their destination.

An 'extreme burden' for police

Jörg Radek, vice chairman of the police union, said that the deportations placed an "extreme burden" on the deployed officers.

Many of the deportees were in an exceptional state emotionally, they said.

"They resist with any means: scratching, biting, spitting and kicking. Some police officers have been badly injured," he told the paper.

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan By the planeload On September 12, 2017, a flight left Germany's Düsseldorf airport for Afghanistan, carrying 15 rejected asylum seekers in what is the first group deportation to the country since a deadly car bomb blast near the German embassy in Kabul in late May. The opposition Greens and Left party slammed the resumption of deportations to Afghanistan as "cynical."

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan Fighting for a chance In March 2017, high school students in Cottbus made headlines with a campaign to save three Afghan classmates from deportation. They demonstrated, collected signatures for a petition and raised money for an attorney to contest the teens' asylum rejections - safe in the knowledge that their friends, among them Wali (above), can not be deported as long as proceedings continue.

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan 'Kabul is not safe' "Headed toward deadly peril," this sign reads at a demonstration in Munich airport in February. Protesters often show up at German airports where the deportations take place. Several collective deportations left Germany in December 2016, and between January and May 2017. Protesters believe that Afghanistan is too dangerous for refugees to return.

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan From Würzburg to Kabul Badam Haidari, in his mid-30s, spent seven years in Germany before he was deported to Afghanistan in January 2017. He had previously worked for USAID in Afghanistan and fled the Taliban, whom he still fears years later – hoping that he will be able to return to Germany after all.

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan Persecuted minorities In January of the same year, officials deported Afghan Hindu Samir Narang from Hamburg, where he had lived with his family for four years. Afghanistan, the young man told German public radio, "is not safe." Minorities from Afghanistan who return because asylum is denied face religious persecution in the Muslim country. Deportation to Afghanistan is "life-threatening" to Samir, says change.org.

Deportations from Germany to Afghanistan Reluctant returnees Rejected asylum seekers deported from Germany to Kabul, with 20 euros in their pockets from the German authorities to tide them over at the start, can turn to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for assistance. Funded by the German Foreign Office, members of the IPSO international psychosocial organization counsel the returnees. Author: Dagmar Breitenbach



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