ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Politicians from Germany's Greens on Sunday emphasized the need to prevent the deportation of Yazidis, following the introduction of a bill by the party in the German parliament to halt such deportations.
Florian Hassler, State Secretary for Political and European Affairs of Baden-Wurttemberg, told Rudaw that any decision regarding the fate of Yazidis living in Germany lies with the federal government, but called for "more precision" when it coming to making decisions about their fate.
"The decision lies with the federal government, because we are a state government and don't directly make asylum and immigration law. But... the special situation of Yazidis who have suffered genocide cannot be compared with other people seeking refuge here. Therefore, we ask the federal government to handle this with more precision and not send people back to an area they fled from due to terrible genocide. We try to make our institutions more aware in this regard," Hassler, who is also a member of the Greens, said.
Amid ongoing instability in the Yazidi heartland of Shingal and poor living conditions in camps across the Kurdistan Region housing members of the ethnoreligious group, the Green has recently presented a bill in the Bundestag to halt the forced deportation of Yazidis.
Germany has stepped up efforts to deport migrants.
In August 2014, the Islamic State (ISIS) launched a brutal attack on Shingal, committing systematic killings, enslavement, and rape of thousands of Yazidis. Both the United Nations and the German Bundestag have recognized the attack as genocide.
Although ISIS has been expelled, much of Shingal remains devastated, lacking basic services, security, and infrastructure, with rival militias and political factions vying for control. This instability has left many Yazidis unable to return home.
Cem Ozdemir, a former minister and a member of the Greens, also opposed the deportation of Yazidis from Germany.
"We don't understand is that unfortunately the CDU [Christian Democratic Union] is preventing family reunification. We're talking about only 20 cases. I don't understand - Yazidis being sent back from Berlin, no normal person understands this. We have Turkish nationalists and Islamists here and nothing happens to them, yet Yazidis are being sent back. This is not appropriate," he said.