Berlin – More than 600 deportations from Germany have failed this year because of some form of resistance by the migrants in question, a three-fold increase on the same period last year, the German government said in a document released on Thursday.

The information requested by the far-left Die Linke party showed that of the 641 deportations that failed due to some form of resistance, 141 failed because migrants cited medical conditions and the remainder failed because the migrants resisted on other grounds.

Two hundred other deportations failed because pilots or airlines refused to take the migrants back to their countries of origin and seven failed because the countries refused entry.

Ulla Jelpke, the head of Die Linke's parliamentary group, said the dramatic rise in resistance on the part of migrants was due to the "increasing brutality of deportation policies." Unannounced deportations even after migrants have lived in Germany for several years are causing them to fight back, Jelpke said.

A total of 12,261 deportations have taken place so far this year, a slight decrease on the same period last year, when 12,565 were sent back to their countries of origin.