Nigerian refugees in Germany are currently at risk of being forcefully deported home if they fail to leave the country by mid-January in 2022.
According to Network Refugees4Refugees, those affected are expected to embark on “voluntary return” to the country to avoid the wrath of German authorities.
The Nigerian refugees were earlier billed to be removed from Germany on December 14, but a last-minute cancellation of their chartered flight brought them some relief and they were released from detention.
In a statement, however, the refugee group said the Nigerian refugees are expected to embark on a voluntary return to their country within the stipulated period.
“Failure to do so would mean further criminalisation and then a justification for detention until the deportation can be enforced,” the refugee group said.
A similar deportation move was made by the German government against Nigerians in March after it announced they had no permit to stay in the country.
It was gathered that since 2017, deportation flights carrying over 200 Nigerians have departed Germany while between July and November alone, not less than 110 persons have been violently deported from Germany to Nigeria, according to the refugee network.
“While others have been lucky to have been released from detention, deportation prisons were at the same time being filled up with new people who were randomly arrested either from their workplaces or at an appointment bait by the Alien Office,” it further stated.
Even before the mid-January deadline for voluntary return, Germany is “determined to enforce massive deportation in the Christmas week (21.12.21) and January (19.01.22)”
The group is calling on Nigerians to “collectively speak against this situation of deportation violence and the smuggling of Black Africans into the country from Germany.”
The network is equally demanding that Nigeria declines the issuance of a landing permit for any deportation flight from Germany and anywhere.
“Stop the mobile embassy hearings and issuance of deportation certificate (Travelling certificate.
Furthermore, we are asking the Nigerian government to take positive steps in addressing the situation of its citizens in the Diaspora.
The continued stigma and hate against Nigerians living abroad is unacceptable and our government must engage with the German government in more practical terms rather than our return and re-integration agenda.”
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