NGOs Warn of Thousands of Illegal Returns at German Austrian Border
In this regard, the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN), the Pushback Alert Austria and the Bayerischer Flüchtlingsrat have released evidence of pushbacks from Germany to Austria, AtoZSerwisPlus.de reports.
The evidence is based on the testimonies of a total of six Syrians between November and December 2022, which highlight allegations of illegal pushing on the German-Austrian border.
According to the BVMN, these Syrian asylum seekers were caught during police checks in Freilassing, Passau and Munich. They reported that they had expressed their desire to apply for asylum in Germany to German officials. Despite this, they were transported back to Austria the next day without access to the regular asylum procedure.
In addition, official German government statistics from 2022 documented 14,675 cases of refusals at the German-Austrian border. Of this figure, around 9,980 were from the 15 most common countries of asylum origin. Meanwhile, regarding the number of unauthorised registrations, it was 22,824 in total, 16,277 of which were from the main countries of asylum.
Further data from Pushback Alarm Austria and the BVMN reveal that in November last year, around 3,077 people arrived at the German-Austrian border, but only 20 asylum applications were lodged. Also, in December, almost 2,107 arrived at the German-Austrian border, but only 12 asylum requests were made.
Based on this data, only 0.6 per cent of people who entered Germany via the Austrian border were able to apply for asylum during this period.
Moreover, at the German-Swiss border, a total of 3,644 applications were rejected, where 2,914 of them came from the main countries of asylum; the number of unauthorised entries was 10,472, while 7,651 of them came from the main countries of asylum.
However, the smallest decrease in unauthorised entries was recorded at the Polish-German border in 2022, with a total of 15,198 entries, of which 10,359 from the main countries of asylum. And proportionally much fewer rejections – 55 in total, 27 from the main countries of asylum.
A recent government document in response to a parliamentary inquiry by left-wing refugee policy spokeswoman Clara Bünger also revealed that in the first quarter of 2023, a total of 3,063 unauthorised entries were registered at the Swiss-German border, and three of every four cases were rejected.
During this period, the dpa also noted that more than half or 62 per cent of the 3,674 unauthorised entries had been registered at the German-Austrian border. At the Polish border, there were also three rejections, although most unauthorized entries are currently being registered at this German border.
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