Germany’s Interior Ministry says deportation of Afghans whose asylum requests have been rejected has been temporarily suspended in the wake of an attack in Kabul that seriously damaged the German Embassy.
A flight to Kabul planned for Wednesday has been put off and spokesman Johannes Dimroth says other deportations will be postponed for the time being.
Germany considers areas of Afghanistan, including Kabul, safe and has been regularly deporting Afghans whose asylum requests have been rejected, particularly those with criminal records.
Dimroth says the decision to postpone deportations was not due to a reassessment of the danger, but rather because the embassy in Kabul is not in a position to deal with the return of the deportees after being damaged in the attack.
He says Germany’s position that deportations, particularly of convicted criminals, are necessary.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is condemning the massive suicide truck bombing in Kabul that killed 80 and wounded hundreds, saying that “terrorism has no borders.”
The chancellor said terrorism “targets all of us—whether in Manchester or Berlin, Paris, Istanbul, St. Petersburg or today in Kabul.”
She spoke in the southern German city of Nuremberg just hours after the explosion near the German Embassy in Kabul on Wednesday. A German diplomat was slightly injured, an Afghan embassy employee suffered serious injuries and an Afghan guard died in the blast.
Merkel said that “today we’re united in shock and sadness across all borders.”
She expressed her sympathy for the victims and their families and vowed that, “we will lead the fight against terrorism and we will win it.”
France’s foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian says the French Embassy in Kabul suffered material damage in the car bombing that killed scores of people in the Afghan capital’s diplomatic area earlier in the day.
Le Drian said in a statement Wednesday that French authorities have not had information on potential French casualties “at this stage” but that they’re still checking.
The minister expressed his “indignation” at the “terrorist attack” in a country that “is paying a heavy toll on terrorism again.” He offered his condolences to “families of the many victims” in the massive bombing.
Le Drian stressed that “France stands by Afghanistan in the fight against terrorism.”
