A group of Christian refugees said to have "abused the goodwill" of the Czech Republic and its people are to be deported to Iraq.

The refugees had been granted asylum in the Czech Republic but attempted to travel over the border to Germany where they were stopped by police and returned to Prague by Germany.

They've now been issued with a deportation order and are expected to leave the Czech Republic and be returned to Iraq on Thursday. 

The Czech television news channel ČT24 tweeted a picture of men boarding a bus with the caption: "Okrouhlik Iraqis detained by German police."

Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec tweeted that the arrangements made for refugees and how their passports were managed should not be used "to violate laws or to move to another country within the Schengen area."

He said that all those "who have abused the goodwill of the Czech Republic and its citizens" are being returned to Iraq.

The Christian refugees arrived in the Czech Republic under the Generation 21 Endowment resettlement programme and were put up in Okrouhlik near Jihlava. Not content with what was on offer from their host country, they boarded a bus to Essen in Germany.

"By rejecting asylum and leaving the accommodation facility, we offered to them, they started acting on their own account," said a spokesman for the Generation 21 Endowment.

Generation 21 has helped 89 Christians from Iraq arrive in the Czech Republic since January.

The organisation was to help more than 150 but after 25 of the refugees asked for their passports back, Chovanec suspended the programme, Ceske Noviny reported.

He said the Czech Republic could not be used as a travel agency to bring refugees closer to their countries of choice, such as Germany.