A plane chartered by the German government, carrying 138 Afghan nationals granted admission to Germany, touched down in the eastern city of Leipzig on Wednesday evening.
All individuals had received a legally binding admission, a spokesperson for the German Foreign Office said.
The plane took off from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.
The Interior Ministry said that 45 of the passengers are children and young people, 76 are female, and 62 are male.
The group was set to be taken to a camp in central Germany before being distributed among the federal states two weeks later.
A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry said that the individuals had previously been granted admission to Germany and that no new grants would be issued. They also emphasized that each person would undergo thorough checks before being allowed entry.
Earlier this year, three similar flights brought a total of 461 people from Afghanistan to Germany, with arrivals in Berlin and Hanover.
According to Foreign Office figures, around 2,600 vulnerable people from Afghanistan are currently waiting in Pakistan to be admitted to Germany.
They include former staff of German institutions in Afghanistan and their relatives, as well as Afghans who face persecution by the Taliban, for example because they previously campaigned for human rights as lawyers or journalists.
Germany’s next government plans to end the admission programmes, stating in its newly released coalition agreement: “We will end voluntary federal admission programmes as far as possible (e.g. Afghanistan) and not launch any new programmes.”
Afghans who are still waiting to leave Islamabad could soon come under considerable pressure as Pakistan began a new wave of deportations of Afghan refugees at the beginning of April, planning to expel 3 million Afghans in the long term.
Pakistan’s Minister of State for Interior Affairs, Talal Chaudry, recently announced that from May, the deportations would also affect those Afghans who are waiting in Pakistan to leave for Western countries.
Afghans waiting in Islamabad are already reporting increasingly difficult conditions. They say families often have to spend many months, sometimes over a year, in guest houses, while reporting for monthly renewals of their visas.
In order to pay the high visa fees, many people have taken out loans from relatives or sold property in their home country, which would leave them destitute if their asylum applications are denied.
In response to a question about whether Afghans who have been granted admission to Germany are threatened with deportation from Pakistan, the Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are in close coordination and contact with the Pakistani authorities and are committed to helping people who have a binding admission.”
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