Berlin, Dec 7 (AFP) Germany said today that it hadexpelled 27 Afghan men, despite fierce protests from opponentswho say it is not safe to return them to war-torn Afghanistan.
"This morning, 27 people were returned to Afghanistan,"the interior ministry announced on Twitter.
They include 17 who have been convicted of crimes, twowho are deemed "dangerous individuals" and eight who have"stubbornly refused to give their real identities," it said.
The men left Germany late yesterday from Frankfurtairport, where around 600 people had gathered to demonstrateagainst the expulsions.
Despite the criticism, German Interior Minister Thomas deMaiziere vowed to press on with sending back "dangerousindividuals, criminals and those who refuse to give their realidentities".
After more than a million asylum seekers arrived inGermany since 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government cameunder pressure to halt the influx.
With public unease mounting over the new arrivals, Berlinstruck deals, including with Turkey, to dissuade would-bemigrants from trying to reach Germany.
Last year, Germany signed a deal with Kabul to repatriateAfghans who had failed to obtain asylum, and began expellingpeople in December 2016.
The government maintains that certain areas ofAfghanistan are "safe" for repatriations, though it suspendeddeportations for a few months after a truck bomb rippedthrough the diplomatic district in Kabul in May, killing anAfghan guard at the German embassy and wounding two employees.
But it has since resumed the expulsions despite meetingwith strong public resistance.
Around 200 students staged a sit-in in May at avocational school in Nuremberg and clashed with police whocame to detain for deportation a 20-year-old Afghan studentwho had been in the country for over four years.
In the first nine months of the year, 222 expulsion bidshad to be scrapped because pilots refused to fly the planes,German news agency DPA reported.
Eighty-five of the 222 aborted flights were operated bynational carrier Lufthansa or its subsidiary Eurowings. (AFP)CPS.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.