Afghan refugees stuck in Pakistan as Germany halts entry programme

By Riham Alkousaa and Charlotte Greenfield

BERLIN/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -In a cramped guesthouse in Pakistan's capital, 25-year-old Kimia spends her days sketching women — dancing, playing, resisting —in a notebook that holds what's left of her hopes.

A visual artist and women's rights advocate, she fled Afghanistan in 2024 after being accepted on to a German humanitarian admission program aimed at Afghans considered at risk under the Taliban.

A year later, Kimia is stuck in limbo.

Thousands of kilometres away in Germany, an election in February where migration dominated public debate and a change of government in May resulted in the gradual suspension of the programme.

Now the new centre-right coalition intends to close it.

The situation echoes that of nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared to settle in the United States, but who then found themselves in limbo in January after U.S. President Donald Trump took office and suspended refugee programmes.

Kimia's interview at the German embassy which she hoped would result in a flight to the country and the right to live there, was abruptly cancelled in April. Meanwhile, Germany pays for her room, meals and medical care in Islamabad.

"All my life comes down to this interview," she told Reuters. She gave only her artist name for fear of reprisal.

"We just want to find a place that is calm and safe," she said of herself and the other women at the guesthouse.

The admission programme began in October 2022, intending to bring up to 1,000 Afghans per month to Germany who were deemed at risk because of their work in human rights, justice, politics or education, or due to their gender, religion or sexual orientation.

However, fewer than 1,600 arrived in over two years due to holdups and the cancellation of flights.

Today, around 2,400 Afghans are waiting to travel to Germany, the German foreign ministry said. Whether they will is unclear. NGOs say 17,000 more are in the early stages of selection and application under the now dormant scheme.

The foreign ministry said entry to Germany through the program was suspended pending a government review, and the government will continue to care for and house those already in the program.

It did not answer Reuters' questions on the number of cancelled interviews, or how long the suspension would last.

Reuters spoke with eight Afghans living in Pakistan and Germany, migration lawyers and advocacy groups, who described the fate of the programme as part of a broader curb on Afghan asylum claims in Germany and an assumption that Sunni men in particular are not at risk under the Taliban.

The German government says there is no specific policy of reducing the number of Afghan migrants. However, approval rates for Afghan asylum applicants dropped to 52% in early 2025, down from 74% in 2024, according to the Federal Migration Office (BAMF).

POLITICAL SHIFT

Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021. Since May 2021 Germany has admitted about 36,500 vulnerable Afghans by various pathways including former local staff, the government said.

Thorsten Frei, chief of staff to Germany's new chancellor Friedrich Merz, said humanitarian migration has now reached levels that "exceed the integration capacity of society."

"As long as we have irregular and illegal migration to Germany, we simply cannot implement voluntary admission programs."

The interior ministry said programs like the one for Afghans will be phased out and they are reviewing how to do so.

Several Afghans are suing the government over the suspension. Matthias Lehnert, a lawyer representing them, said Germany could not simply suspend their admissions without certain conditions such as the person no longer being at risk.

Since former chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany's borders in 2015 to over a million refugees, public sentiment has shifted, partly as a result of several deadly attacks by asylum seekers. The far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD), capitalising on the anti-migrant sentiment, surged to a historic second-place finish in February's election.

Afghans Reuters spoke with said they feared they were being unfairly associated with the perpetrators, and this was putting their own lives at risk if they had to return to Afghanistan.

"I'm so sorry about those people who are injured or killed ... but it's not our fault," Kimia said.

Afghan Mohammad Mojib Razayee, 30, flew to Germany from Cyprus in March under a European Union voluntary solidarity mechanism, after a year of waiting with 100 other refugees. He said he was at risk after criticising the Taliban. Two weeks after seeking asylum in Berlin, his application was rejected.

He was shocked at the ruling. BAMF found no special protection needs in his case, a spokesperson said.

"It's absurd — but not surprising. The decision-making process is simply about luck, good or bad," said Nicolas Chevreux, a legal advisor with AWO counseling center in Berlin.

Chevreux said he believes Afghan asylum cases have been handled differently since mid-2024, after a mass stabbing at a rally in the city of Mannheim, in which six people were injured and a police officer was killed. An Afghan asylum seeker was charged and is awaiting trial.

'YOU DON'T LIVE'

Spending most days in her room, surrounded by English and German textbooks, Kimia says returning to Afghanistan is unthinkable. Her art could make her a target.

"If I go back, I can't follow my dreams - I can't work, I can't study. It's like you just breathe, but you don't live."

Under Taliban rule, women are banned from most public life, face harassment by morality police if unaccompanied by a male guardian, and must follow strict dress codes, including face coverings. When security forces raided homes, Kimia said, she would frantically hide her artwork.

The Taliban say they respect women's rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and local culture and that they are not targeting former foes.

Hasseina, is a 35-year-old journalist and women's rights activist from Kabul who fled to Pakistan and was accepted as an applicant on to the German programme.

Divorced and under threat from both the Taliban and her ex-husband's family, who she says have threatened to kill her and take her daughter, she said returning is not an option.

The women are particularly alarmed as Pakistan is intensifying efforts to forcibly return Afghans. The country says its crackdown targets all undocumented foreigners for security reasons. Pakistan's foreign ministry did not respond to request for comment on how this affects Afghans awaiting German approval.

The German foreign ministry has said it is aware of two families promised admission to Germany who were detained for deportation, and it was working with Pakistan authorities to stop this.

Marina, 25, fled Afghanistan after being separated from her family. Her mother, a human rights lawyer, was able to get to Germany. Marina has been waiting in Pakistan to follow her for nearly two years with her baby.

"My life is stuck, I want to go to Germany, I want to work, I want to contribute. Here I am feeling so useless," she said.

(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa and Charlotte Greenfield; Additional reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar; editing by Matthias Williams, Alexandra Hudson)