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, a statement by the ministry responsible for refugees said on Saturday.
There are also concerns about a growing number of people seeking asylum abroad and on the run in the country itself.
Many European countries are deporting rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan, including Austria. Deportations to the crisis country are controversial. Despite the start of peace talks in September, the conflict with the Taliban continues. Since the start of the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan in early May, the security situation has worsened. The Islamists have since conquered a quarter of the districts in the country. In the process, they have killed, wounded, captured or persuaded hundreds of government officials to give up.
According to UNO data, between the beginning of May and the end of June, almost 84,000 people within Afghanistan had to flee their villages and cities before the fighting. Every day civilians are killed in the conflict in crossfire in combat, by bombs on the side of the road or through targeted killings.
Austrian NGOs like asylkoordination, the association Autonome Frauenhäuser and ZARA are calling for a deportation stop to Afghanistan. Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) recently rejected this request. “It has to be deported more and not less, especially when it comes to asylum seekers who have committed criminal offenses,” said Kurz, who points out that, according to the security report (2019), Afghan citizens in Austria represent the largest group of foreign perpetrators of sexual offenses.
The German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also said on Monday that he considered the previous deportation practice to be justifiable despite the increase in violence. The German Bundeswehr left Afghanistan at the end of June. The last army soldier in Afghanistan returned to Austria on June 18. The Pentagon announced on Tuesday that the withdrawal of US troops was more than 90 percent complete.
