Germany deports 81 Afghan men to their homeland in 2nd flight since the Taliban's return

BERLIN (AP) — Germany deported dozens of Afghan men to their homeland on Friday, the second time it has done so since the Taliban returned to power and the first since a new government pledging a tougher line on migration took office in Berlin.

German authorities said a flight took off Friday morning carrying 81 Afghans, all of them men who had previously come to judicial authorities' attention and had asylum applications rejected.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the deportation was carried out with the help of Qatar and was preceded by weeks of negotiations. He also said there were contacts with Afghanistan, but didn't elaborate.

More than 10 months ago, Germany's previous government deported Afghan nationals to their homeland for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to step up deportations of failed asylum-seekers.

Merz noted that, while diplomatic relations between Germany and Afghanistan have not formally been broken off, Berlin does not recognize the Taliban government in Kabul.

“The decisive question is how one deals with this regime, and it will remain at technical coordination until further notice,” he said at a news conference in Berlin. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, visiting Paris, said that “there is no expansion of relations and no recognition of the regime there.”

The Interior Ministry said the government aims to carry out more deportations to Afghanistan, but didn't specify when that might happen.

Merz made tougher migration policy a central plank of his campaign for Germany’s election in February.

Just after he took office in early May, the government stationed more police at the border — stepping up border checks introduced by the Scholz government — and said some asylum-seekers trying to enter Europe’s biggest economy would be turned away. It has also suspended family reunions for many migrants.

Asylum applications declined from 329,120 in 2023 to 229,751 last year and have continued to fall this year.

“You can see from the figures that we are obviously on the right path, but we are not yet at the end of that path,” Merz said.

The Afghan deportation flight took off hours before German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt discussed migration with counterparts from five neighboring countries — France, Poland, Austria, Denmark and the Czech Republic — as well as the European Union's commissioner responsible for migration, Magnus Brunner. Dobrindt hosted the meeting on the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak, on the Austrian border.

Dobrindt said the countries agree that the European migration system “must be hardened and sharpened,” with faster asylum proceedings and “return hubs” outside the EU.

“We wanted to send a signal that Germany is no longer sitting in the brakeman's cab on migration issues in Europe, but is in the locomotive,” Dobrindt said.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends the annual press conference at the Federal Press Conference in Berlin, Germany, Friday, July 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

A Qatar Airways plane takes off from Leipzig/Halle Airport, Friday, July 18, 2025, Saxony, Schkeuditz. (Jan Woitas/dpa/dpa via AP)

FILE -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends the cabinet meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, July 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

People board a Qatar Airways plane, with federal police vehicles in front of it, on the apron at Leipzig/Halle Airport, Friday, July 18, 2025, Saxony, Schkeuditz. (Jan Woitas/dpa/dpa via AP)

A Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh, local officials said Sunday.

A young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit after debris from a drone fell on a house during the attack on Saturday, regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.

Three other people were wounded and more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged, he said, adding that air defenses shot down 17 drones over Voronezh. The city is home to just over 1 million people and lies some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

The attack came the day after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.

For only the second time in the nearly four-year war, Russia used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyiv and NATO.

The intense barrage and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile followed reports of major progress in talks between Ukraine and its allies on how to defend the country from further aggression by Moscow if a U.S.-led peace deal is struck.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address that Ukrainian negotiators “continue to communicate with the American side.”

Chief negotiator Rustem Umerov was in contact with U.S. partners Saturday, he said.

Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia targeted Ukraine with 154 drones overnight into Sunday and 125 were shot down.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

This photo provided by the Ukrainian Security Service on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, shows a fragment believed to be a part of a Russian Oreshnik intermediate range hypersonic ballistic missile that hit the Lviv region. (Ukrainian Security Service via AP)

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, second left, listens to British Defense Secretary John Healey during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)