Afghan refugees have been stuck in Pakistan as Germany inhibits the entry program

Berlin/Islamabad: In a limited hostel in the federal capital, 25-year-old Kimos spends her days outlining women-shaking, playing, resisting-in a notebook that holds what is left of her hopes.

An artist and lawyer for women’s rights left Afghanistan in 2024 after being admitted to a German program of humanitarian admission aimed at Afghans who were at risk under the Taliban.

A year later, Kimia is stuck in the vacuum.

Thousands of kilometers away in Germany, elections in February, where immigration dominated public debate and the change of government can lead to the gradual suspension of the program.

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

The situation reflects that of the 1,660 Afghans who were cleared to settle in the United States, but who were then found in a vacuum in January, after US President Donald Trump assumed duties and suspended refugee programs.

Kimia’s interview with the German Embassy hoping to lead to a flight to the country and the right to live there was abruptly canceled in April. In the meantime, Germany pays for its room, meals and medical care in Islamabad.

“All my life comes down in this interview,” he said Reuters. She only gave her artist’s name for fear of retaliation.

“We just want to find a place that is calm and safe,” she said of herself and other women in the hostel.

The admission program began in October 2022, intends to bring up to 1,000 Afghans a month to Germany, who were at risk because of their work in human rights, justice, politics or education or because of their sex, religion or sexual orientation.

However, fewer than 1,600 reached two years due to vibration and cancellation of flights.

Today, about 2,400 Afghans are waiting to travel to Germany, the German Foreign Ministry said. Whether they travel is unclear. NGOs say 17,000 more are in the early stages of choice and application in the context of today’s scheme.

The Foreign Ministry has said that entering Germany through the program was suspended pending the government’s revision and the government would continue to take care of and housing those already on the program.

Did not answer Reuters’ questions about the number of canceled interviews or how long the suspension would last.

Reuters spoke with eight Afghans living in Pakistan and Germany, immigration lawyers and defense groups, who described the fate of the program as part of a wider curvature in Afghan asylum in Germany and a hypothesis that Sunni men are not in particular.

The German government says there is no specific policy to reduce the number of Afghan immigrants. However, approval rates for Afghan asylum seekers decreased to 52% in early 2025, 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 acknowledged about 36,500 vulnerable Afghan from various paths, including former local staff, the government said.

Thorsten Frei, head of staff in the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, said humanitarian immigration has now reached levels that “go beyond the ability to integrate society”.

“As long as we have irregular and illegal immigration to Germany, we simply cannot implement voluntary admission programs.”

The interior ministry said programs like this for Afghans will be gradually abolished and considering how to do so.

Several Afghans sued the government for the suspension. Matthias Lehnert, a lawyer representing them, said Germany could not simply suspend their imports without certain conditions such as a person who is no longer at risk.

As former Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany’s border in 2015 to over one million refugees, public emotion has shifted, partly as a result of several deadly attacks by asylum seekers. The far-right alternative to Germany’s party (AfD), taking advantage of the anti-immigrant feeling, fell into a historic final second finish in the February election.

Afghans, who spoke ReutersThey said they were afraid that they were unjustly linked to the perpetrators and this ended their lives if they had to return to Afghanistan.

“I am very sorry for those people who are injured or killed … but it is not our mistake,” Kimia said.

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

Was overwhelmed by the decision. Bamf did not find special needs for protection in his case, one spokesman said.

“It’s absurd-but it’s not surprising. The decision-making process is just for luck, good or bad,” said Nicolas Chevreux, a legal adviser with the AWO Counseling Center in Berlin.

Chevreux said he believed that Afghanistan asylum cases were treated differently since mid -2024, after a mass struggle in a rally in Mannheim, where six people were injured and a police officer was killed. An Afghan asylum seeker has been charged and awaiting trial.

‘You don’t live’

Most days in her room, surrounded by English and German manuals, Kimia says that the return to Afghanistan is unthinkable. Her art could make her a goal.

“If I come back, I can’t follow my dreams – I can’t work. I can’t study. It’s like breathing, but don’t live.”

Under the dominance of the Taliban, women are banned from most public life, face the harassment of the moral police if a guardian man has unknowingly and must follow strict clothing codes, including persons. When the security forces introduced the houses, Kimia said, she would hide her works of art.

The Taliban says they respect women’s rights in accordance with the interpretation of Islamic law and local culture and that they do not target former enemies.

Hasseina, is a 35 -year -old journalist and activist of women’s rights from Kabul, who left Pakistan and was accepted as a request for the German program.

Divorced and threatened by both the Taliban and her ex -husband’s family, who says she was threatening to kill her and take her daughter, said that the return is not an option.

Marina, 25, left Afghanistan after being separated from her family. Her mother, a human rights lawyer, was able to reach Germany. Marina waits in Pakistan to follow her with her baby for almost two years.

“My life is stuck, I want to go to Germany, I want to work, I want to contribute. Here I feel so useless,” he said.