International

Migrant crisis: Germany offers Afghan refugees cash to go home

Published

8 years ago

March 15, 2016

Migrant crisis: Germany offers Afghan refugees cash to go home

Not able to cope with growing influx of refugees and asylum seekers, Germany is offering to give cash incentives to Afghan refugees willing to return home but only a few have accepted the gesture.

Statistics reveal that more than 200, 000 Afghans left their war-torn country in search of better living but on arrival in Europe have been faced with untold hardship.

Faced with a cold welcome and increasing uncertainty and the hardship of living as a refugee in a foreign land, some asylum seekers are accepting the cash incentive to return to Afghanistan.

Having spent five months and $7,500 to get to Germany, Ismail Usofzi is one of the few refugees that has accepted the cash incentive.

“They gave me a document and it was written in red that I could be subjected to deportation and there were no guarantees of a bright future for me,” Usofzi told Al Jazeera.

He said he paid $7,500 to smugglers and went to Germany for the future of his family.

“It said it could take years for me to be accepted into society,” Usofzi said.

He said he could not find work and could not get permission for his wife and three children to join him.

In the end, he accepted a payment of $2,000 from the German government to leave and return home.

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