One of the most disputed issues in the current coalition talks is whether war refugees should be allowed to bring their families to Germany. While parties refuse to compromise, refugees live with the consequences.

Jihad, a neatly shaven man with salt and pepper hair, pulls up a recent picture on his phone of his daughter riding her pink bike for the first time. The Syrian never got to see his daughter making her first wobbly journey on two wheels though – the photo was sent to him by his wife. He hasn’t seen his family in over two years.

 

As is the case for over 200,000 other refugees in Germany who have only been granted “subsidiary protection”, Jihad’s family cannot come here.

 

In early 2016 the public mood in Germany began to turn against the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who had arrived in the country over the preceding months.

 

Mass sexual assaults by men from North Africa and the Middle East in Cologne at the start of the year unleashed a public debate on the compatibility of refugees with German values. The government responded by putting family reunifications for war refugees on ice.

 

As of March 2016 only people who can prove they were personally persecuted in their homeland have the right to reunite with their family in Germany.