The German government remains committed to reaching an agreement with Damascus to accelerate the repatriation of Syrian war refugees, despite concerns about the humanitarian situation in a country where violence continues and the economy and infrastructure have been devastated.
In late September, Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt reported rhenish post The newspaper says his intention was “to reach an agreement with Syria this year and then deport initially criminals and later those without residence permits.”
But this is easier said than done, for both legal and humanitarian reasons. “Syria is at its limit; its capacity to take in refugees has already reached its limit,” said Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, director of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Syria. south german newspaper Last week’s newspaper. “We are dealing with one of the largest refugee crises in the world there.” He warned that sending more Syrians back to their home countries would worsen the situation.
humanitarian disaster
The German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development says some 7 million people are internally displaced within Syria. This is on top of the 1 million war refugees who have returned to the country – mainly from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey – in the nine months since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December last year. In August, it was reported that 1,300 Syrians had returned home from Germany since the fall of Assad.
One refugee in Germany was Tariq Allouz, who fled in 2015 because he was a critic of al-Assad’s regime. Now a spokesperson for the German refugees’ rights organization Pro Asylum, he visited his home country late last year to form his own opinion about the situation there. The UNHCR decision confirmed everything he had seen there, he said.
“When people go back, there aren’t even homes for them,” Allouz told DW. “What I saw in Damascus is that many families are having to share the same apartment – even in the apartments that exist, the rent is not affordable. That’s why four or five families will share a four or five-room apartment inside Damascus.”
Syrian infrastructure and food distribution is still in desperate need of reconstruction. According to UN calculations, 16.7 million Syrians are dependent on humanitarian aid, out of a total of 25 million inhabitants.
security disaster
This humanitarian crisis is exacerbated by the unstable security situation, which is partly due to the fact that small arms spread widely in Syria after the war. “In cities other than Damascus, there is hardly any household that doesn’t have a gun,” Allouz said. “And if any tension increases the whole country could explode.” Indeed, there have already been reports of violence against minorities, including Druze, Alawites, and LGBTQ people, across Syria.
“We need long-term security in the country, then many people can actively return,” Allouz said. But sending people back to that situation for the sake of what Allouz calls “symbolic politics” would only worsen the situation in Syria and force more people to flee once again.
In a statement to DW, the German government confirmed that it is in contact with the new Syrian government, which is currently led by former rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa. “The Federal Interior Ministry also considers it necessary that persons who committed criminal offenses in Germany and do not have the right of residence return to their country,” the Interior Ministry statement said.
But even if the government is able to negotiate a repatriation agreement with the Syrian government, this will only limit the practicality of such deportations. This would not mean that more people could be deported immediately. “Even such a deal would not change the fact that each individual case must be evaluated,” said Valentin Feneberg, research assistant to the chair of public policy and law at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Leuphana in Lüneburg.
The cases of people who come to Germany and ask for asylum are first examined by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). If they are rejected, they can appeal to the courts, which are also obliged to make a case-by-case assessment. If the person loses that appeal, he or she will lose his or her right of residence. But if they do not leave the country voluntarily, the decision to deport them is different – and the humanitarian situation in the country of origin plays a role in that decision.
“Even if a person has committed a crime, it does not mean that he or she can be deported,” Feinberg said. “That decision is always based on the situation in the country of origin.” This means that, according to German law, a convicted criminal cannot be deported even if they are at risk of torture, execution, or other serious human rights violations in their country of origin.
Now ‘Can’t bear it?’
Daniel Thyme, professor of public, European and international law at the University of Konstanz, confirmed this, but added that because the Syrian war has ended, he now expects that fewer Syrians will be granted protected status in Germany.
“Then it’s a political question about which people should be given priority,” he told DW. “And there are politicians who say, obviously, we’ll focus on people with criminal records first, but that’s a political priority that has nothing to do with a legal assessment.”
The plan to increase deportations has also drawn significant criticism for ethical and economic reasons. Left party leader Jan van Aken said in a statement, “Whoever wants to send people to Syria now is not only morally bankrupt; they also have no information. Not about the situation in Syria, but also about the situation here in Germany.”
More and more Syrians are now working in Germany, given the country’s growing population, there is a need to attract more workers. According to the Federal Employment Agency, approximately 236,000 Syrian citizens are now working and paying social insurance contributions in Germany.
Legal warning for deportation plans
The latest figures from the Interior Ministry say more than 225,000 people of various nationalities in Germany are legally obliged to leave the country. Of these, about 40,000 people are students, employees or tourists who have overstayed their visas.
Most of the rest have a condition known as “Tolerance” or “tolerated”, which means that they are not deported either because they do not have documents proving their nationality, because their identity cannot be conclusively established, or because they have a disease that cannot be treated in their home country. Official figures say that 9,600 Syrians in Germany have tolerated status – these are people Germany could theoretically deport to Syria.
But according to Feinberg, there are also legal caveats. “There is a possibility of protection being granted when the humanitarian situation in Germany and Europe is so dangerous that it could be life-threatening,” he said. This may include a situation where there is extreme poverty throughout the country or in particular areas. “This – and this is just my forecast – could be very important for decisions on Syria.” In other words, assessments made by UNHCR and other international bodies may still play a role in the German court’s decisions.
Edited by Kyra Levin
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