On Tuesday (July 22, 2025), 43 people were deported from Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany to Baghdad on a deportation flight. This was confirmed by the Federal Ministry of the Interior as well as the Thuringian Ministry for Justice, Migration, and Consumer Protection. Thuringian Minister of Justice Beate Meißner stated in Erfurt that the deportees were individuals who were required to leave the country and were all single men, some of whom had committed criminal offenses. Fourteen of them had previously lived in Thuringia, while the others had come from seven other federal states.
In 2024, according to the Ministry of the Interior, Germany deported 816 Iraqis. Some of them had come to other EU countries to process their asylum applications, while 615 people were directly brought to Iraq. In February of this year, 47 people had already been deported from Hanover to Iraq.
On July 18, 2025, a deportation flight to the Afghan capital, Kabul, was also launched from Leipzig/Halle Airport. According to authorities, 81 Afghan men were on board, all of whom were legally required to leave the country and had criminal records, including 15 serious offenders from Bavaria. This was the second deportation flight to Afghanistan since the Taliban took power in August 2021. The collective deportation was carried out with the assistance of the strategic security partnership with the Emirate of Qatar. The German government plans to organize further deportation flights to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sources:
Media Information, Thuringian Ministry for Justice, Migration and Consumer Protection, 22/07/2025
Media Information, Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior, for Sport and Integration, 18/07/2025
Press Release, Federal Ministry of the Interior, 18/07/2025
Photo: A deportation flight to Baghdad © Hendrik Schmidt / dpa