Afghan refugees stuck in Pakistan
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In a cramped guesthouse in Islamabad, 25-year-old Kimia spends her days sketching women — dancing, playing, resisting — in a notebook that holds what's left of her hopes.
A visual artist and women's rights advocate, she fled Afghanistan in 2024 after being accepted on to a German humanitarian admission program aimed at Afghans considered at risk under the Taliban.
A year later, Kimia is stuck in limbo. Thousands of kilometres away in Germany, an election in February where migration dominated public debate and a change of government in May resulted in the gradual suspension of the programme.
Now the new centre-right coalition intends to close it. The situation echoes that of nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared to settle in the United States, but who then found themselves in limbo in January after US President Donald Trump took office and suspended refugee programmes.
Kimia's interview at the German embassy which she hoped would result in a flight to the country and the right to live there, was abruptly cancelled in April.
Meanwhile, Germany pays for her room, meals and medical care in Islamabad. "All my life comes down to this interview," she told Reuters. She gave only her artist name for fear of reprisal.
"We just want to find a place that is calm and safe," she said of herself and the other women at the guesthouse. The admission programme began in October 2022, intending to bring up to 1,000 Afghans per month to Germany who were deemed at risk because of their work in human rights, justice, politics or education, or due to their gender, religion or sexual orientation.
However, fewer than 1,600 arrived in over two years due to holdups and the cancellation of flights. Today, around 2,400 Afghans are waiting to travel to Germany, the German foreign ministry said. Whether they will is unclear.
NGOs say 17,000 more are in the early stages of selection and application under the now dormant scheme.
The foreign ministry said entry to Germany through the program was suspended pending a government review, and the government will continue to care for and house those already in the program.
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