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Afghan teens in Swedish asylum limbo
Published: 29 Jul 09 09:59 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/20976/20090729/
A wave of teenage Afghan refugees has arrived in Malmö and other Swedish cities in recent weeks. Many remain in limbo as most Swedish municipalities refuse to accept them.
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In the southern Swedish city of Malmö alone, 45 teenagers have arrived and applied for asylum over the past fortnight.
They are among the 250 teenagers and children housed in reception centres around Sweden, 84 of which are in Malmö. Many have been in limbo for several months due to a chronic shortage of available places in other municipalities.
Of Sweden's 290 municipalities, only 100 have signed agreements with the Migration Board to accept refugees.
The Migration Board's head Dan Eliasson has joined the migration minister Tobias Billström in calling on municipalities' local councils to take on a greater share of the burden.
"The situation demands that more municipalities sign agreements to help the most vulnerable. The municipalities claim that they lack expertise. But these kids are not from Mars. Their problems do not differ from those that other teenagers can need help with," Dan Eliasson said to the newspaper.
The flow of teenage boys, mostly from Afghanistan and Somalia, taking their chances on treacherous journeys to Europe has been increasing recently as conflicts escalate in their home countries.
One recent arrival to Sweden is 13-year-old Mehdi Heidari, who began his journey from Afghanistan seven months ago.
"My father was murdered by the Taliban," he told DN.
"The Taliban tries to recruit all the boys to their schools. They offer food and shelter. If you don’t accept, things can get violent. They hit my fingers with a hammer."
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) many of those arriving in European countries have taken up to a year to complete their journeys, living on the fringes of society in the countries they pass en route.
When they arrive at their destinations many do not bother to apply for asylum and continue to live outside of formal society and accurate statistics are therefore difficult to compile.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
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@antoniolgj, maybe we should stop contributing in creating new wars every day by directly fighting there, selling lethal weapons to the best buyer and supporting criminal governments.
so we are very proud to see multi cultural people in sweden.
Please see details on http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,USCRI,,AFG,4562d8cf2,485f50d82,0.html
So i think it would be OK for Sweden to accommodate these kids from a US led war-zone who have already suffered immensely. Sweden is a signatory to cooperate with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, in order to provide protection for refugees within the framework of a special refugee quota.
I appreciate your dream to see Sweden a ' multi-cultural ' country but at the same time Sweden should set up standards to differentiate between brain and drain.
the western forces are helping out the majority of the afghan people get rid of this misogynists and religious fanatics that the taliban are. it was about time that someone did something about it. human rights are universal.
and in the mean time, it doesn't hurt to help the very few that make it to sweden, which is no heaven anyway.
What's wrong with those countrys ?
and do you really think that western countries are interested in fighting misogynist and religious fanatics? In Iraq, we gave power exactly to that kind of people... countries like Saudi Arabia are never put in discussion despite being very much fundamentalist... human rights are very often a joke when talking about foreign policy; any country has as 1st priority its own interests in the geographic region.
If sweden is to spend its TAX on immigration, then get great value for money and use humans that show great innovative methods ? (such as these kids)
i.e. if we send 4000 troops to Afghanistan then we are required to take a maximum of 4000 refugees.
I wonder how many refugees the US has taken?
This problem with refugees is primarily that Sweden is a very difficult country for a non-native unemployed person to find gainful employment and settle into the native society and secondly that Sweden takes more refugees and gives more aid per capita than any other country in the EU (probably world - citation needed). Hence, taxpayers such as myself are a little disgruntled when OUR money is invested so heavily in housing and supporting refugees who have come here to take advantage of our benefits system.
Why can't we spend more of our tax money on Swedish healthcare, schools, roads, infrastructure etc? It is not a bottomless pit of money.
Because this doesn't "enrich" Sweden...
However Sweden seems to be favoring workers with greater educational backgrounds rather than those who show self motivation etc.
Again , any kid that can travel around the world off their own hard work shows dedication or talent to me. And I believe its a safer bet to invest TAX in foreign workers who show such motivation.
no doubt that saudi arabia, iran, north korea, etc would benefit from democracy and humane human rights. and it's not happening, but at the same time not many people in the west are voicing their opinions about it. instead they oppose the war in afghanistan. how weird.
- What are the Western forces in Afghanistan are there for?
- Why are the "asylum seekers" not sent back after an armistice? Which law states that asylum must lead to permanent stay and citizenship of the host countries? As citizens of Afghanistan, it is the refugees' duty to change the system of their own countries, not of the host countries.
Sweden is a western thinking, mainly secular and agnostic country and islamism totally contradicts this modus operandi.
These refugees need to re-locate.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/08/top_ten_reasons_why_sharia_is.html
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-1554835/How-Sweden-became-so-secular.html
@diegoveggie, you may be right but, then, there is little sense in complaining about refugees and migrations. It should be openly said that, any time an international crisis starts, new waves of people will ask to come to our countries... no sense to complain any time about the obvious
Of course they can not.
Btw, Swedish governments and policies of accepting asylums are not stupid, this country if does not accept immigration, it will end to a population of ZERO. The problem is that some swedes do not want to accept that and that is their problem. Another thing which surprises me about immigration to Sweden, if they want a multi-cultural society, why do not they accept qualified people I mean educated people who can contribute to the building of Sweden???? and not only sitting and eating people, any body knows why????
"Multi-culturalism" is a government policy scam that has been sold to the Swedish public for the past twenty -five years or so. Do you really want a future Sweden where a significant part of the population is Muslim?.
I think you will find that Sweden's policy of multi cultural integration is no longer on par with the international standard.
Sweden has needed to change its stance on this term due to the need to increase population density.
"Do you really want a future Sweden where a significant part of the population is Muslim?. "
What's your problem? Right where you and I live (Canada) there are already many Muslims. What's your issue here. Fear mongering does not solve anything.
Unlike Canada, USA or even Britain, Sweden had no history of mass immigration or colonialism until about 25 yrs ago when Swedish politicians all of a sudden out of the blue declared Sweden as being "multi-cultural".
I'm not against immigration or taking in refugees, but for our own good, we have to be selective about who we let in.
Its clearly evident from 1960 onwards as part of the swedish policy.
However its only been the past 25 years that we have seen a larger increase in non european workers.
How long before you are a minority in your own country? Maybe focus on turning the refugees into Swedes would be a better tact, unless you plan on sending them home soon.
how one can say that they are under 18 years. they dont have any paper with them to prove that. the guys who come to sweden very well know that sweden is a banana country.
they dont go to greece.
i can bet they are surely not under 18.they say that they are under 18. so they can be treated as children.
already they made little bit warm up trial in ROSENGARD six months back.
For the past few years, Sweden has taken in more middle eastern refugees then US and Canda put together.
My annoyance is this, why are people complaining about refugees instead of addressing some of the root causes.
Why aren't these afghans trying to seek asylum in the countries responsible for their current state?
History has a way of repeating itself.
When the Soviets were fighting with the Afghans, CIA operatives went to Afghanistan to remind them that the soviets are infidels & trained them on bomb making, fighting etc.
Today, roles are reversed, the US in is Afghanistan, to fight the Taliban, the very group they helped create.
pakistan, afghanistan and iran are always in the news.
now radical islam spreads to nigeria and war going on now.
Actually there is one Swedish town that just by itself has taken in more Iraq refugees than Canada/USA together. Seriously, how much longer can Sweden continue with this "mother to the world" refugee policy before it causes serious social consequences..
Come to Sweden, the dumass tax payers will pay for you to live, start a small business, cheat on your taxes, live on welfare and drive a BMW!
Let the idiots pay for us! then join the Jihad, do not forget to bring your relatives once here!
Let the hnonst tax payer fuel the generosity of the social democrats who give away what is not theirs nor earned with the sweat of their backs!
Question is - why is it that America has not taken in refugees - as they are surely a huge part of the cause ?
If you migrate to a new place and bring good tidings, your hosts would want more of you and your kind. If you bring bad tidings, they definitely would want less of you and your kind. People are not stupid, put yourself in the same position and see if you would be happy to see other people come destroy what you and your ancestors have worked to build. I have seen extremely disgusting immigrant-behaviour that made even me ashamed.
Worse still is the fact that most of these acts will definitely not be condoned in the middle-east. You cannot demand respect if you don't give it.
you can not demand respect for your culture or religion.
you crossed tolerence limits.
Strangely no one on this forum seems to want to discuss the motivations of the West in trying to conquer Afghanistan. Does it have anything to do with long term strategic power interests such as control over the vast oil and gas resources of Central Asia? Pipelanistan? The humanitarian concerns are mostly phoney, as usual. With such wealth and power at stake it seems stingy not to help with the on the ground human victims of this war.