Lower thirds:

00:02 Report by Sella Oneko
00:24 Chaste Zamukunda | Refugee from DRC
01:01 Dennis Kumer | Refugee and pastor from South Sudan
01:55 Friedrich Merz | German Chancellor
02:21 Mathias Lehnert | Immigration lawyer
02:50 Sella Oneko | DW East Africa Correspondent
03:25 Clement Makonde | Refugee from Zimbabwe
03:52 Dennis Kumer | Refugee and pastor from South Sudan

Script:

This was April 2025. Chaste Zamukunda and her son, boarding their flight away from the refugee camp. First destination Nairobi. Having fled war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chaste  was being resettled from one of Kenya's biggest refugees camps to Germany – along with her neighbor. Something both had been hoping for, for years.  

0:22  

Chaste Zamukunda ((Swahili, Fem.)) - Refugee from DRC 

"We felt like we were being saved. We went to Nairobi and were put up in a good place. We ate well, we slept well. Then the bad news came: Germany has rejected us, we're not going."  

0:37 

Dennis Kumer, a pastor from South Sudan, and his family were also on that flight out of the refugee camp. In the past two years they had gone through medical checks, security interviews and they had their flight itinerary to Germany set. Once in Nairobi, they got a little flight bag with sanitizer and items for their journey. The news they weren't traveling came as a shock. 

1:00 

Dennis Kumer – Refugee and pastor from South Sudan ((Eng. Male - subtitle)) 

They told us that there is an election going on in Germany, that we will discontinue our journey. In fact, it was not a good day for all of us. You found everyone falling sick. People with high blood pressure, had their pressure going up very high. Even the food was left. No one could eat their food.  

1:32 

What had happened, was that Friedrich Merz's centre-right party had won the German election, in part on a promise of curbing migration. And in April this year, his coalition put the brakes on Germany’s voluntary participation in a United Nations program to resettle refugees.  

1:49 

Friedrich Merz – German Chancellor (File: Berlin, April 2025) 

We will take a new course on migration. There will be checks at the borders and rejections of asylum seekers. We will also start a deportation drive and put an end to voluntary admission programs.  

((Wir werden einen neuen Kurs in der Migrationspolitik einschlagen. Es wird kontrollen an den Staatsgrenzen geben und auch Zurueckweisungen gegebnueber Asylgesuchen. Wir werden eine Rueckfuehrungsoffensive starten, wir werden das Ende der freiwilliigen Aufnahmeprogramme vornehmen.)) 

2:04 

It’s affected refugees in many countries. Some of whom are now taking legal action. An immigration lawyer, who represents clients from South Sudan and Afghanistan says there are over 50 families and individuals suing the German government. 

2:19 

Mathias Lehnert – Immigration lawyer ((Eng, Male)) 

We are actually confronted with lots of individuals who have legal binding acceptances to get to Germany and the German new government not only closed their eyes to the individual situation, but they are closing their eyes to the law.\ 

2:42 

Altogether, 183 refugees were flown back from Nairobi to the camps in April, according to UNHCR 

2:50 

Sella Oneko – DW Correspondent 

This is the area that the refugees were taken back to in the very remote, northern part of Kenya, not far from the border to South Sudan. Where there’s very little water and very little food. Germany had initially promised to take in 13,000 refugees in the years of 2024 and 2025. But up to now they’ve just taken in over just a third.  

3:09 

Nearly all the refugees had given up their houses, their jobs and spent their money to buy clothes for their journey to Germany. Camp authorities have now provided them with new housing, where they're basically starting from scratch. Suitcases still packed.  

3:24 
Clement Makonde ((Eng. Male)) - Refugee from Zimbabwe 
It’s like hell coming back to this place. It’s like going back to hell when you are in heaven. 

3:28 

Pastor Kumer and his family got somewhat lucky. They were able to move back into the house in the camp that Kumer had built himself years ago – but it now houses 15 people. Because he no longer has his job, or his position in the church, his wife's doughnuts, which she sells by the roadside, are now their only source of income.  

3:50 
Dennis Kumer ((Eng. Male)) - Pastor from South Sudan 
For me as a South Sudanese. When I look back home, there is no peace completely. So that motivates me to look for another place. Then when I also assess the area of Kakuma here, things are not going well.  

4:05 

All of the refugees we spoke to had dreamt of an end to their displacement - and the  hardship, posed by living in a refugee camp. 

And perhaps most importantly: – a better future for their children...., a hope many here still cling on to. 

4:21 BE