BERLIN: Germany deported a man to Syria for the first time since the civil war broke out in that country in 2011, the interior ministry in Berlin said Tuesday.&nbsp;A Syrian immigrant previously convicted of criminal offences in Germany was flown to Damascus and handed over to Syrian authorities on Tuesday morning, the ministry said.&nbsp;&quot;Our society has a legitimate interest in ensuring that criminals leave our country,&quot; Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said in a press release.&nbsp;The deportation just before Christmas capped months of talks with Syria&#39;s government, which mirrored similar efforts by Berlin to strike a deportation deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan.&nbsp;Human rights groups have criticised efforts to send immigrants back to either country, citing continued instability and evidence of rights abuses.&nbsp;But Germany&#39;s conservative-led government has made the resumption of deportations to Syria a diplomatic priority since former president Bashar al-Assad fled the country just over a year ago.&nbsp;In July, Austria became the first European Union country to deport someone to Syria since 2011.&nbsp;The German ministry said that deals have now been struck with both Damascus and Kabul to allow regular deportations of &quot;criminals and dangerous individuals&quot; in the future.&nbsp;Roughly a million Syrians fled to Germany to escape the civil war, many of them arriving in 2015.&nbsp;The Syrian man deported on Tuesday had served a prison sentence in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia for aggravated robbery, bodily harm and extortion.&nbsp;The ministry said an Afghan man was also deported to his home country on Tuesday. That man had also served time in prison for intentional bodily harm and other crimes.

Middle East

Europe

Germany deported a Syrian man convicted of crimes, marking its first return to Syria since 2011, after talks with Damascus. Berlin says deals now allow deportations of criminals, despite criticism from human rights groups internationally.

Germany deports man to Syria for first time since 2011

ACCRA: Eleven West African nationals deported by the US to Ghana were sent to their home countries over the weekend despite safety concerns, their lawyer told a court in Ghana on Tuesday. The US had deported a total of 14 West African immigrants to Ghana under controversial circumstances. Although Ghanaian authorities earlier said they had all been sent home, the deportees and their lawyers later told The Associated Press that 11 of them were still at a military facility in Ghana. The 11 deportees sued the Ghanaian government last week, seeking their release. Eight of them had told the local court that they had legal protections from being deported to their home countries &ldquo;due to the risk of torture, persecution or inhumane treatment.&rdquo; &ldquo;We have to inform the court that the persons whose human rights we are seeking to enforce were all deported over the weekend,&rdquo; their lawyer, Oliver Barker-Vormawo, told the court Tuesday at a virtual hearing, adding that the suit had become irrelevant. &ldquo;This is precisely the injury we were trying to prevent,&rdquo; he said of the safety concerns of the deportees. The Trump administration&rsquo;s deportation program has faced widespread criticism from human rights experts who cite international protections for asylum-seekers and question whether immigrants will be appropriately screened before being deported. The administration has been seeking ways to deter immigrants from entering the US illegally and remove those who have already done so, especially those accused of crimes, and including those who cannot easily be deported to their home countries. Faced with court decisions that migrants can&rsquo;t be sent back to their home countries, the Trump administration has increasingly been trying to send them to third countries under agreements with those governments. Ghana has joined Eswatini, Rwanda, and South Sudan as African countries that have received migrants from third countries who were deported from the US.

Africa

Eleven West African migrants deported by the US to Ghana were sent home despite legal protections against torture and persecution, their lawyer said, calling it a violation of human rights amid Trump’s controversial deportation program.

Articles tagged with "Deportation"

Germany deports man to Syria for first time since 2011

US deports 11 Ghanaian migrants despite safety concerns