Sweden Calls in Army to Control Refugee Flow

A refugee from Syria prays after arriving on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos aboard an inflatable dinghy from Turkey. | Photo: AFP

Published 10 November 2015

An official at Sweden’s migration agency said they did not have room for more refugees as the country has welcomed more than 120,000 in this year alone.

With more than 10,000 refugees arriving at its borders every week, Sweden has called in the army to impose border controls and control the influx of the refugees into its territory, government officials said Tuesday.

"We don't have any more space,” Fredrik Bengtsson, the country's immigration agency spokesman, told reporters at a news conference.

“For the last three or four nights we've had people sleeping in our (non-residential) centers across the country. Right now we're just looking for people to have a roof over their heads."

Anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats giving refugees in Lesbos leaflets warning not to come to Sweden (HT @dagensnyheter) pic.twitter.com/PGQPZGWl1Q — ChristianChristensen (@ChrChristensen) November 9, 201

On Monday, military officers were sent to help coordinate logistics at Sweden’s refugee and immigration agency. According to The Guardian, they will be involved at a management level, rather than on the ground.

In 2013, Sweden said that it would grant any Syrian refugee who reaches its soil permanent residency. Last summer the arrivals were at 4,000 people a week. The number is now at 10,000.

But given more than 800,000 people have arrived in Europe this year alone, Sweden's “open doors” policy seems to have overburdened the country and the government is now seeking aid from the European Union.

"We have … decided to instruct the Swedish Migration Agency to apply for EU funding, emergency assistance, from the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund," Employment Minister Ylva Johansson told reporters.

ANOTHER new center for refugees in Sweden has been burned down by fascists https://t.co/esUYGfWswK pic.twitter.com/PSqMyPjll2 — Matt Black (@NoirMJ) November 10, 201

Of all the refugees who have so far arrived in Europe, at least one in seven have ended up in Sweden, even though the country accounts for just one in 50 EU citizens. So far in 2015, more than 120,000 people have applied for asylum in Sweden.

Germany, which at first had the same open doors policy as Sweden, has recently imposed border controls with Austria in September and October. Meanwhile, East European countries have been cracking down on the flow of refugees by building fences along their borders, shutting them off, and canceling trains going west.

Hungary built a 109-mile razor-wire fence along its border with Serbia and another along its border with Croatia before announcing the complete closure of that border to refugees. Slovenia blocked transit from Croatia in September.

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