More than 12,000 Afghan migrants to Germany are to be sent back to their home country because large parts of Afghanistan are considered safe, according to a German government document reviewed by a German newspaper Thursday.

The document - an explanation by the government to a question posed by the hard-left Die Linke (The Left) party - states that about 5 per cent of the 247,000 Afghans who had reached Germany by the end of September will likely be sent home because their safety can be guaranteed in Afghanistan's larger cities.

That would amount to 12,539 Afghans.

The information was released in Thursday's edition of the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung.

The government statement says it expects some of the migrants will return of their own accord. However, it noted that some of the removals might be by force.

The question of forcibly repatriating people to Afghanistan is controversial, since there are many questions about how safe the country is, given regular Taliban attacks. Just last week, four people died when Taliban forces attacked the German consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif.

So far this year, 27 Afghans have been deported after their asylum applications were rejected. In 2015, there were nine.