Germany urged to reverse Yazidi family's removal to Iraq – DW – 07/25/2025
The eastern German state of Brandenburg's Interior Minister Rene Wilke on Friday said he was pushing for the return of a Yazidi family recently deported to Iraq, saying the removal may have violated a court order.
The Yazidis are a religious minority that suffered genocide at the hands of the "Islamic State" (IS) militant group in Iraq in 2014, making such deportations particularly contentious.
The family, which includes four underage children, was deported on Tuesday, even though a court had lifted their obligation to leave the country on the same day.
On Tuesday, 43 people were deported to Iraq on a charter flight from Leipzig to Baghdad. However, contrary to initial claims by the authorities of the participating federal states, the plane was not just filled with single men who were required to leave the country, some of whom had committed crimes in the past. The Yazidi family was also on board.
The family's lawyer had filed an emergency appeal with the Potsdam Administrative Court before the flight. The court ruled in their favor, but the family was already en route to Baghdad by then.
"Given the chain of circumstances, the specific fate of the family, and the imperative to restore legal compliance, I have instructed the relevant Brandenburg authorities to work with federal officials on bringing the family back — provided the court decision in their favor holds," Wilke said. He stressed that the federal government must issue the necessary travel documents and recognize the court ruling.
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Wilke said the incident had personally moved him. The court's written decision, which retroactively suspended the deportation, wasn't available until after they had landed in Baghdad," he noted. "At that point, the involved authorities no longer had the ability to intervene."
The Yazidi family, who had been living in Lychen in Brandenburg's Uckermark region, had filed a lawsuit in 2023 against the rejection of their application for international protection and the deportation order. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees had denied the family's asylum application.
Politicians from the center-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens, and the socialist Left Party have called for the family's return.
In 2023, the German Bundestag officially recognized the crimes committed by IS against Yazidis in 2014 as genocide.
Many Yazidis who fled IS atrocities still can no longer return home because their villages in Sinjar remain destroyed or lawless. Some IS fighters and sympathizers remain active in parts of Iraq, particularly in rural or unstable areas.
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The group Nadia's Initiative, which advocates for survivors of sexual violence and aims to rebuild communities in crisis, said it was concerned that the case was not an isolated incident.
"The family—two parents and four young children—had lived in Germany for years. The children were enrolled in school and fully integrated into their community. This deportation has devastated the family and undermined their basic sense of safety and belonging."
"Other Yazidi families in Germany have also received deportation notices, and many now live in constant fear of forced return to a region still grappling with the aftermath of genocide, displacement, and lack of tangible support from the Iraqi government."
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Why the birth rate in Germany continues to nosedive – DW – 08/03/2025
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Long-distance arms: German money for Ukraine's combat drones – DW – 08/03/2025
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"The process is ongoing," Mitko Müller, a senior spokesperson for Germany's Ministry of Defense, told DW in late July. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In June 2024, Denmark became the first NATO member state to get involved in the Ukrainian arms industry. German arms manufacturers are represented in Ukraine, with Rheinmetall, an arms manufacturer headquartered in Düsseldorf, likely the most visible. The industrial giant is expanding its presence there and is engaged in a number of joint ventures. For example, tanks are being manufactured and repaired there and an ammunition factory being built. "We are seeing a huge change in Germany's approach toward Ukraine, a complete opening up," Ihor Fedirko, the chief executive of the Ukrainian Council of Defense Industry (UCDI= told DW. Direct investments by the German government into Ukrainian drone and missile production are still a relative novelty. 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The Bavarian firm has already delivered thousands of drones to Ukraine and, last February, announced a new contract for over 6,000 HX-2 strike drones. According to online publication Defense industry Europe, the HX-2 is "an electrically propelled X-wing precision munition with a range of up to 100 kilometers." Its use of advanced computing also makes it more resistant to electronic warfare. Helsing did not respond to DW's enquiries asking for further details. However, as much as the Ukrainians might be pleased about German funding and investments into drones, demand still far outstrips supply. Gressel argues that Ukraine needs bulk supplies of good quality. These can only be produced cost-effectively inside Ukraine itself. The same argument applies to missiles, such as the Taurus cruise missiles, a weapon the Germans are currently unwilling to supply. However, Gressel suggests that cooperation with German companies might enable some parts to be supplied. That could increase the range of Ukraine's own Neptune cruise missiles, with more energy-efficient engines that could fly further on the same amount of fuel and more accurate sensors, which would help land-based targeting. However, a decision on supplies like that has yet to be made. Germany is not only more willing to invest in Ukraine but also to share knowledge. At the start of the war, there were fears that modern German technology could fall into Russian hands and doubt about the reliability of the Ukrainian military personnel, Gressel explains. That's one of the reasons why Ukraine initially received older weaponry. But that's changed. This is partly due to the fact that Ukraine now produces modern weapons itself and can compete with other manufacturers. "German companies are learning things here that you never get to simulate in peacetime," Gressel notes. For example, Ukraine's combat zone is absolutely packed with jammers, jamming devices and air defense systems, the sort of thing you'd never get anywhere else, not on a NATO training ground, in simulations in Germany, nor in the US. The defense industry recognizes this, Gressel says. Quantum Systems' Kruck can confirm that. "Drone development is a game of cat and mouse," he told DW. "Only those who are on site can adapt to all the constant changes. Our insights from Ukraine flow directly into our product development, which we make available to all our customers worldwide." He sees his company's work in Ukraine as a "flagship project" and wants to encourage others to emulate it. The UCDI's Fedirko would like to see this kind of cooperation go even further. "Germany is a country with typical European bureaucracy," he admits. "So it takes time to get things done. But when the Germans say they're doing something, we Ukrainians know it will get done." 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