A six-member family with four minor children belonging to the Yazidi minority, which had been the target of ruthless persecution by Islamic State jihadists for years, was deported from Germany to Iraq this week, hours before an appeals court granted an urgent appeal.

The family left Germany on a special deportation flight that departed Leipzig with 43 people on board and was bound for Baghdad, a spokesman for the interior ministry of the state of Brandenburg said.

The flight took off at 10:52 (local time; 11:52 GMT), according to the specialist website FlightRadar24, which means the family had already been deported and was outside the territory when an administrative appeal court in Potsdam, the state capital of Brandenburg just outside Berlin, granted an urgent appeal against the deportation at 15:30 (16:30 GMT).

The family of six had been living in Lichen, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Berlin, since 2022, according to the RBB network.

In 2023, she appealed to the courts against her pending deportation after her application for international protection was rejected.

Initially her appeal was rejected, which meant she was forced to leave the country, however an urgent appeal was then lodged on Tuesday morning against the 2023 decision.

But when the court granted the appeal, citing new circumstances that raised doubts about whether and how the decision by the federal Immigration and Refugee Board (BAMF) to reject her application for international protection was lawful, the deportation had already taken place.