Inserts:

00:03 Report /  Hannah Hummel
01:54 Friedrich Merz / German Chancellor

Script:

((Father brushing daughter's hair, family packing final things together)) 
A comforting routine before a flight into a new future. 

This Afghan family is getting ready for their trip to Germany, where they hope to be safe. 

+++ SOT women's rights activist +++ 
I'm thrilled to be heading to Germany. The world knows that women's rights in Afghanistan are under threat. They face restrictions on work, education, and more. My hope is to raise my voice for Afghan women once I reach Germany, advocating for their rights and freedom. I hope the German government and human rights organizations will extend their support to those stranded in Pakistan for one or two years. They’re in grave danger, and every effort counts. 

((Family waiting at the airport for their flight.)) 
They're the lucky ones.  

((Family reading email telling them their asylum has been rejected.)) 
This family has just received an email saying their asylum claim which the German government had accepted - has now been rejected. ... Along with more than 600 other Afghans in the same situation, living in hiding in Pakistan. 

+++ SOT +++  
Don't play with our lives, we've endured two years of hardship here in Pakistan, constantly hiding from the police. We leave home in the morning and are back at night living in fear of arrest and deportation. We urge the German government to consider the Afghan refugees stranded here. 

Berlin promised a new home to hundreds of Afghans and their families who were particularly under threat from the Taliban government. That included people who’d worked for German troops – and individuals whose work put them at risk, like women’s rights activists. Such people often end up disappeared or dead in Afghanistan. 

But the coalition government of Friedrich Merz has since moved to roll back much of that commitment.  

 +++ SOT Merz +++ 
“We need to know whom we are inviting to Germany to stay here permanently. We adhere to our legal obligations, but we also look carefully at who comes to Germany and who receives long-term residence status here.”

((Bundestag pics)) 
The German Interior Ministry says there is no longer any political interest in admitting refugees who don’t have an explicit legal case. It has offered money to Afghans in Pakistan to return to Afghanistan.   

((Protest pics outside Bundestag))  
Outside the German parliament, protesters call on the government to keep its original promises, instead of leaving hundreds of Afghan families in limbo, trapped in Pakistan, with no clear future.+++