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IMMIGRATION

2800 asylum seekers sent home from Austria

Nearly 2,800 asylum seekers have been sent home by Austria in the first three months of the year as the country steps up its programme to encourage people to leave.

2800 asylum seekers sent home from Austria
Asylum seekers arriving in Austria. EPA/GYORGY VARGA

The figures compare to last year, when a total of 8,365 failed asylum seekers were deported to their homelands.

In recent months Austria has been encouraging asylum seekers go home voluntarily by providing a stipend, which is seen as a cheaper option than housing people in detention centres. The move is part of the country’s plan to return 50,000 asylum seekers back home by 2019.

An asylum seeker who leaves the country voluntarily within three months receive €500, those who leave within six months get €250, and after six months, they get €50.

Of the latest figures released this week, 890 were forcibly deported and 1,896 agreed to leave voluntarily. Among those persuaded to return were 623 Iraqis, 278 Iranians and 273 Afghans.

Head of the Federal Office for Asylum (BFA) Wolfgang Taucher says that some asylum seekers are feeling homesick and no longer want to live in limbo and despair in refugee centres in Europe.

“We were promised something different before we came”, is the sentiment often heard by Taucher from some asylum seekers living in Austrian refugee centres, according to the Kurier.

Taucher believes more people would be interested in returning but do not want to lose face by asking relatives back home to help pay for a return flight.

A new BFA project to encourage people to leave will be piloted in refugee centres, initially aimed at asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Nigeria and Morocco.

Working in partnership with NGOs Caritas and Human Rights Austria, the BFA plans to distribute information explaining that flights and medical care will be covered for those who want to return voluntarily.

FAR-RIGHT

Germany issues entry ban to Austrian far-right activist Sellner

Radical Austrian nationalist Martin Sellner has been banned from entering Germany, it emerged on Tuesday, days after he was deported from Switzerland.

Germany issues entry ban to Austrian far-right activist Sellner

Sellner, a leader of Austria’s white pride Identitarian Movement, posted a video of himself on X, formerly Twitter, reading out a letter he said was from the city of Potsdam.

A spokeswoman for the city authorities confirmed to AFP that an EU citizen had been served with a “ban on their freedom of movement in Germany”.

The person can no longer enter or stay in Germany “with immediate effect” and could be stopped by police or deported if they try to enter the country, the spokeswoman said, declining to name the individual for privacy reasons.

READ ALSO: Who is Austria’s far-right figurehead banned across Europe?

“We have to show that the state is not powerless and will use its legitimate means,” Mike Schubert, the mayor of Potsdam, said in a statement.

Sellner caused an uproar in Germany after allegedly discussing the Identitarian concept of “remigration” with members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) at a meeting in Potsdam in November.

Reports of the meeting sparked a huge wave of protests against the AfD, with tens of thousands of Germans attending demonstrations across the country.

READ ALSO:

Swiss police said Sunday they had prevented a hundred-strong far-right gathering due to be addressed by Sellner, adding that he had been arrested and deported.

The Saturday meeting had been organised by the far-right Junge Tat group, known for its anti-immigration and anti-Islamic views.

The group is also a proponent of the far-right white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory espoused by Sellner’s Identitarian Movement.

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