12,000 Nigerian asylum seekers in Germany face deportation

More than 12,000 Nigerians asy­lum seekers in Germany are like­ly to be deported in 2018 be­cause they will be denied asylum status, a German official confirmed on Tuesday in Abuja.

According to Authorityngr report, the Global Head of Programme, Mi­gration and Development, Dr Ralf Sanf­tenberg, stated this when he visited Spe­cial Assistant to the President of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Mrs. Abike Dabi­ri-Erewa.

Sanftenberg, leader of delegation from the German Federal Ministry of Econom­ic Cooperation and Development was on a site assessment mission for assisted-vol­untary returnees of Nigerian irregular mi­grants in Germany.

The mission’s coordinate centre for In­ternational Migration and Development (CIM), which offers returning expert services support that targeted knowledge transfer.

“We have over 37,000 Nigerians in Germany and more than 12,000 of them are asylum seekers.

“There is a little chance for their ap­plications to be moved and they may be forced to come back to Nigeria next year,” he said.

He said that 99 percent of them were likely to be denied asylum status because Nigeria is not among war countries.

Sanftenberg, however explained that if they were willing to return voluntarily, they would not be forced back or deport­ed but would be assisted through a sup­port programme organised by Germany.

“We provide services for the returning migrants in Nigeria, we can provide train­ing for entrepreneurship. We have provid­ed for several other countries in the field of migration policy actually we want to find out to establish migrant services in Nigeria.”