The German government announced on Wednesday a new initiative to make it more attractive for refugees in Germany to voluntarily return to their country of origin.

Development Minister Gerd Müller (pictured) told German daily newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine that the government would use up to €500 million ($620 million) to finance jobs and vocational training programs in countries including Iraq, Nigeria, Tunisia and Afghanistan.

Read more: Protests against latest Afghan deportations from Germany

"We won't be putting a check in anyone's pocket," said Müller, who is a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, adding: "We are only financing projects on the ground."

Siemens would work with the Development Ministry to train some 5,000 refugees who voluntarily return to Iraq to become electricians and engineers, he said. The initiative aims to convince between 20,000 and 30,000 asylum seekers to return home annually.

Read more: German town successfully pleads for no more refugees

Watch video 02:02 DW speaks with German Development Minister Gerd Müller

Germany offers checks for peoples' pockets

The announcement follows a report in the newspaper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung on Tuesday that a cash-based test program had not been as effective as hoped.

Refugees whose asylum applications in Germany were rejected between December 2017 and February 2018 were eligible to receive up to an extra €3,000 in housing assistance if they voluntarily returned to their country of origin.

Although the government rejected some 28,500 asylum applications during this period, only slightly more than 4,500 people accepted the assistance.

The Interior Ministry nevertheless defended the program as a "good instrument," saying it was too soon to evaluate its success.

Read more: Germany deports more rejected Afghan asylum seekers

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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amp/kms (AFP, KNA)