Video captures tension in Swedish asylum home
The Local Sweden - [email protected]
Published: 31 Jan, 2016 CET.
Updated: Mon 1 Feb 2016 07:10 CET
A worker in a home for unaccompanied refugee children has been reported to Sweden’s social services after he was recorded screaming abuse at the young people in his care.
Swedish Radio published the disturbing footage of the tense situation at the home near Jonköping in southern Sweden, in which the worker shouts and threatens the young men.
In the video, one of the refugee youths is seen pleading with the worker “please, please, please”, before the worker erupts in anger.
“You have a problem with me?” the youth then asks, getting closer, before he begins shrieking, "fight me! fight me! fight me!" and then breaks down screaming and sobbing uncontrollably on the floor.
A broken table is visible. In the background, shouts of “fuck you!”, and “shut up!” are clearly audible.
“We are doing an investigation. There was a conflict between those who live there and the staff,” a spokesman for the Jönköping municipality in central Sweden, which is responsible for the home, told Swedish Radio.
The worker told Swedish Radio that a disturbance had broken out shortly before the video was recorded which had forced him and other staff members to lock themselves in their rooms.
He claimed that the man filmed apparently undergoing a nervous breakdown was the ringleader of the refugee youth, and was faking his apparent anguish for the camera.
"He said that this youth, the boy who fell down on the floor, is just acting. It’s all a show. That’s what the man who you hear shouting says," said Alexandra Svedberg, who reported the story for Swedish Radio.
Svedberg added that the video had been emailed to one of her colleagues by a contact they had at the home.
The reporter said that she believed Sweden's authorities were unable to properly manage or care for the unaccompanied refugee youth who arrived last year.
"I think the big problem is that so many came in such a short time. Now we have I think 38,000 unaccompanied refugee youth, and those youth were placed all over Sweden in very small communities and they don’t have the resources to take care of them. They don’t have enough money and they don’t have enough staff. That’s the main problem."
One of the refugees has been reported to the police for assaults.
According to Sweden’s Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO), there are now 1,163 homes for unaccompanied minors in Sweden in 2015, up from just 118 in 2010.
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Swedish Radio published the disturbing footage of the tense situation at the home near Jonköping in southern Sweden, in which the worker shouts and threatens the young men.
In the video, one of the refugee youths is seen pleading with the worker “please, please, please”, before the worker erupts in anger.
“You have a problem with me?” the youth then asks, getting closer, before he begins shrieking, "fight me! fight me! fight me!" and then breaks down screaming and sobbing uncontrollably on the floor.
A broken table is visible. In the background, shouts of “fuck you!”, and “shut up!” are clearly audible.
“We are doing an investigation. There was a conflict between those who live there and the staff,” a spokesman for the Jönköping municipality in central Sweden, which is responsible for the home, told Swedish Radio.
The worker told Swedish Radio that a disturbance had broken out shortly before the video was recorded which had forced him and other staff members to lock themselves in their rooms.
He claimed that the man filmed apparently undergoing a nervous breakdown was the ringleader of the refugee youth, and was faking his apparent anguish for the camera.
"He said that this youth, the boy who fell down on the floor, is just acting. It’s all a show. That’s what the man who you hear shouting says," said Alexandra Svedberg, who reported the story for Swedish Radio.
Svedberg added that the video had been emailed to one of her colleagues by a contact they had at the home.
The reporter said that she believed Sweden's authorities were unable to properly manage or care for the unaccompanied refugee youth who arrived last year.
"I think the big problem is that so many came in such a short time. Now we have I think 38,000 unaccompanied refugee youth, and those youth were placed all over Sweden in very small communities and they don’t have the resources to take care of them. They don’t have enough money and they don’t have enough staff. That’s the main problem."
One of the refugees has been reported to the police for assaults.
According to Sweden’s Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO), there are now 1,163 homes for unaccompanied minors in Sweden in 2015, up from just 118 in 2010.
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