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Almost three million refugees in Germany


Because of the war in Ukraine, the authorities are registering more people who have fled the country than ever before. But there are doubts as to whether they really all still live here.

More people who have fled from other countries are living in Germany than ever before in the entire post-war period. A total of 2.9 million people were registered as refugees in the Central Register of Foreigners at the end of June. That's almost a million more than half a year earlier - an increase that even exceeds the numbers for the refugee winter of 2015/16.

The reason is clear, the war in Ukraine drove hundreds of thousands to Germany. Since the invasion of Russian troops on February 24, the German authorities have counted almost 900,000 people who have come from their invaded country by the end of June, and now there are almost a million. This emerges from figures with which the federal government answered a question from the left-wing member of the Bundestag Clara Bünger. The Süddeutsche Zeitung has the answer.

Two thirds of the registered war refugees from Ukraine are women, more than a third are children and young people - and almost all of them are Ukrainian citizens. Only about three percent of the people who fled from there have passports from other countries; not all of them are automatically entitled to the residence permits that Ukrainians are entitled to according to an EU decision. It is true that the Vietnamese, Russians, Syrians and Moldovans who fled the Ukraine in particular are given this protection status above average, but so far only a few citizens of African countries have received it. "It can't stay like this," criticizes MP Bünger.

It is not known exactly how many refugees have already left the country
According to the Central Register of Foreigners, around 170,000 of the registered Ukraine war refugees had not submitted any requests for protection by the end of June. This sheds light on the fact that the register does not reflect reality as accurately as it appears. There have long been doubts as to whether there are actually as many refugees in the country as are listed here. In particular, it is very difficult to record who has returned home or traveled to other countries. The Federal Ministry of the Interior has already admitted that "valid data cannot be assumed" for departures.

This does not only apply to Ukraine refugees. While about three-quarters of those who have fled, who did not just come from Ukraine, have a secure residence status and have often been living here for years, the register lists about 300,000 people as having to leave the country. Here, too, there is a high probability that many of them are no longer in the country. Around 250,000 are tolerated because there are obstacles preventing them from leaving the country, and 28 percent lack travel documents. Significantly more than half of these tolerated people have been living in the country for more than five years and thus fulfill one of the main conditions for the "opportunity right of residence" that the traffic light coalition wants to open up to them. That's not enough for the left-wing Bünger. She calls for "an effective humanitarian right to stay".

Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung
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