Tag Archives: Refugee Crisis

Trying to stem refugee influx, Sweden asks: When is a child not a child?

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Under huge strain from an influx of unaccompanied children seeking asylum, the Swedish government faces political pressure to undertake medical tests like X-rays to vet the age of young refugees despite opposition from doctors and lawyers.

The controversy reflects tensions over surging immigration into the Nordic country of 10 million after a public backlash that saw controls reimposed on the border with Denmark, from which most migrants have entered Sweden.

Sweden took in 163,000 asylum seekers last year, the most per capita in Europe. They were among more than one million who streamed into the continent, fleeing increasing conflict and deprivation in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

More than a fifth, 35,000, of those reaching Sweden have been unaccompanied children, stretching services like schools.

Reports of violence and assaults at centers for minors have added to the public disquiet and hardened anti-immigrant sentiment in a country long renowned for its humanitarian open-door policy toward the wretched of the earth.

Many have arrived without IDs, leaving Sweden the task of checking their real ages to ensure adults – defined as age 18 or over – were not pretending to be minors to secure asylum.

Worried young adults may be swelling these ranks, many of Sweden’s opposition parties are calling for medical tests. Even the government has called for more non-medical testing while it awaits reform proposals in April to break the deadlock.

There is a great incentive to claim to be a minor. Applicants have greater access to housing and schools and less chance of being deported.

“At the moment, very few, if any, age assessments are being done in Sweden,” Fredrik Beijer, Director of Legal Affairs of Sweden’s Migration Agency, told Reuters.

Efforts to confirm ages have been hampered by the inability of authorities to carry out medical tests – such as X-rays of teeth and hands. The government said in November it wanted medical tests. But while such tests are not illegal, doctors have refused, saying they are inaccurate.

“We believe that for a decision that has such large consequences in an individual’s life, one must require higher precision,” said Anders Hjern, a spokesman for the Swedish Paediatric Society.

But doubts have not stopped the center right Moderates, Sweden’s biggest opposition party, calling on the migration agency to hire doctors for medical checks in an effort to lower the number of children arriving without families.

“Unaccompanied minors make up around 20 percent of asylum seekers but they cost about half the migration budget,” said Hanif Bali, an Iranian-born lawmaker for the Moderates. Bali himself came to Sweden as an unaccompanied minor at age three.

“Out of my own experience, because I have lived in these kinds of homes, the environment becomes much harsher when you have older people there. You get prison rules and many children get caught up in the older people’s trouble-making.”

Many other European Union countries do carry out medical tests. Austria, for example, allows doctors to do “age determination reports” that include checks on teeth as well as genital development. In Italy, medical-age assessments, such as X-rays, can be carried out by court order.

SWEDEN SHOCKED BY ASSAULTS

The issue of refugee minors is especially sensitive in Sweden. Reports of assaults in overcrowded minors’ centers – including a 22-year-old female Swedish employee of one center who was stabbed to death last week – have contributed to a sense authorities are overwhelmed.

“The risk of disputes and discontent is obvious, and some small detail may trigger conflict,” said Thomas Svensson, head of social affairs for the Emmaboda municipality in southeastern Sweden, where staff at a home for unaccompanied minors locked themselves in a room as 19 migrant youths rioted.

The influx of minors also carries big fiscal costs. Sweden last year had to find an extra 70,000 school places due to asylum seekers, on top of the 100,000 pupils that normally enter the school system for the first time in any given year.

Half of unaccompanied minors have been registered as between 16 and 17, often making age confirmation difficult and sparking accusations from the likes of the far-right Sweden Democrats – the third biggest party in parliament – that adults are taking advantage of soft controls to enter the country.

Even without medical tests, some 667 minors had their age “adjusted” between January and November last year, according to the justice ministry. The data does not show if it was adjusted to above 18. That compares to 363 cases for all 2014.

Proud of Sweden’s decades-old tradition as a self-proclaimed “humanitarian superpower”, the government regards most refugee minors as bona fide refugees fleeing war.

Immigration supporters say Swedes have been unduly influenced by a media frenzy linking migrants with crime that has little to do with reality. For example, despite reports of refugees being associated with sexual assaults, reported rapes fell 12 percent last year in Sweden. Thefts were down 2 percent.

The debate is part of a crisis that has cut center-left Prime Minister Stefan Lofven’s support to record lows in polls due to a popular sense that his government is largely helpless to stop a migrant influx seen as threatening Sweden’s generous welfare state and vaunted social stability.

In a sign of mounting political frustration, Migration Minister Morgan Johansson called on Sunday for the migration agency to carry out more non-medical tests, such as interviews with children.

(Additional reporting by Johan Ahlander and Johan Sennero in Stockholm, Shadia Nasralla in Vienna and Steve Scherer in Rome; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Canada’s Syrian refugee plan draws U.S. Senate panel scrutiny

WASHINGTON/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada is proceeding with plans to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees, but the country’s background-vetting program is under scrutiny by a U.S. congressional panel, with a hearing set for Wednesday, amid lawmaker concerns about U.S. security.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee has questions about the Ottawa government’s intake of refugees by the end of February and the possibility that violent militants could mix in and cross the long, largely porous U.S.-Canada border.

At the public hearing, senators will question U.S. and Canadian experts and a U.S. Border Patrol officer on Canada’s “fast track” resettlement program. Canada’s government turned down an invitation to send a spokesperson to the session.

“We have been in frequent touch with members of the U.S. administration who are satisfied with what we are doing … if the U.S. Senate wants to engage in these activities, that is their right, of course,” John McCallum, Canada’s immigration minister, told reporters on Tuesday.

Initial inquiries show Canada’s background checks on refugees are less rigorous than the 18- to 24-month vettings done by U.S. authorities before letting any Syrian refugee set foot on American soil, congressional aides said.

Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already delayed his government’s program. It had targeted resettlement of the 25,000 by the end of 2015. Now the target is February.

Still, congressional aides said, U.S. officials remain wary of Canada’s screening, noting it is nearly impossible for foreign governments to verify the backgrounds, and identities of refugees, given Syria’s dysfunctional government.

One way Canada is trying to allay concerns about infiltration of the refugee flow by violent militants is by limiting refugees it admits to women, children and lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender individuals.

Canada can vet would-be refugees in U.S. and Canadian law enforcement and intelligence databases, but congressional aides said these databases may omit critical and derogatory information on would-be immigrants’ previous lives in Syria.

Canada’s public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, told reporters on Tuesday that Canada had been “very strong in putting together the security system” used to vet the refugees, and had made a strong effort to keep U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and President Barack Obama fully informed.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Andrew Hay)

German official calls for fewer migrants as registrations triple on year

BERLIN (Reuters) – The number of migrants coming to Germany needs to fall, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel wrote in a letter on Tuesday, as data showed registrations almost tripled in January compared with the same month last year.

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) said Germany’s states registered almost 92,000 migrants last month in the computer system called EASY, which records people in reception centers and then distributes them around the country based on each state’s population and tax revenues.

The sharp rise was probably largely due to people who had arrived last year registering later since a backlog had built up, an expert at the interior ministry said.

The refugee crisis is a “test of endurance” said Gabriel, who is also economy minister, in his letter to members of his Social Democrat (SPD) party.

It comes as Chancellor Angela Merkel faces increasing criticism for her “open-door” policy, which saw more than 1.1 million migrants enter Germany last year. Gabriel’s SPD is the junior partner in Merkel’s ruling coalition.

Merkel has also said the number of refugees needs to go down and that most refugees from Syria and Iraq would go home once the conflicts there had ended.

The federal government in Berlin, as well as states and municipalities, was beginning to feel “how the political pressure is growing and how the right-wing populists are playing with people’s fears”, Gabriel said.

“That’s why Europe must succeed, in the first half of the year, in reducing the number of refugees who come to Germany every year,” he said.

Frauke Petry, leader of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, said at the weekend that migrants entering illegally should be shot if necessary.

Her remarks prompted Gabriel to say on Sunday that Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) should monitor the populist party, which should not be able to “excrete their slogans” on public television.

(Reporting by Thorsten Severin and Holger Hansen; writing by Michelle Martin; editing by Katharine Houreld)

Jordan needs international help over refugee crisis, king says

LONDON (Reuters) – Jordan’s King Abdullah says his country needs long-term aid from the international community to cope with a huge influx of Syrian refugees, warning that unless it received support the “dam is going to burst”.

In an interview with the BBC aired on Tuesday, King Abdullah said the refugee crisis was overloading Jordan’s social services and threatening regional stability. Jordan has already accepted more than 600,000 U.N.-registered Syrian refugees.

“Jordanians are suffering from trying to find jobs, the pressure on infrastructure and for the government, it has hurt us when it comes to the educational system, our healthcare. Sooner or later I think the dam is going to burst,” he said.

Last Thursday, officials said the European Union would promise some $2.2 billion at an international donor conference to be held in London this week to aid Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said last month he would press the EU to relax export rules for Jordan, to help spur economic growth.

“This week is going to be very important for Jordanians to see is there going to be help not only for Syrian refugees but for their own future as well,” King Abdullah told the BBC.

Part of the U.S.-led coalition that is bombing Syria, Jordan has long been praised for helping refugees and been a big beneficiary of foreign aid as a result.

However, it has drawn criticism from western allies and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees over the situation near its border with Syria, where thousands of refugees are being kept far from any aid.

The situation has deteriorated since Russia started air strikes last September to support President Bashar al-Assad.

King Abdullah said if Jordan was not helped, the refugee crisis would worsen.

“The international community, we’ve always stood shoulder to shoulder by your side. We’re now asking for your help, you can’t say no this time,” he said.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Katharine Houreld)

German government rejects ‘absurd’ remark of populist party leader on shooting migrants

BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government rejected on Monday as “absurd” a suggestion from the leader of an increasingly popular opposition right-wing party that police be given powers to use firearms against illegal migrants.

Support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has jumped amid deepening public unease over Merkel’s open-door policy for refugees from Syria and elsewhere after some 1.1 million people entered Germany last year.

Asked about AfD leader Frauke Petry’s suggestion on the use of firearms against migrants, Merkel’s chief of staff Peter Altmaier said: “This proposal is inhuman and absurd. With this suggestion, the AfD has shown its true colours.”

Speaking to local newspapers in an interview to be published on Tuesday, Altmaier said he thought support for the AfD would now fall. Opinion polls currently put it in third place on about 13 percent, behind Merkel’s conservatives and her centre-left coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD).

But German disquiet over the scale of immigration has grown, especially since men of north African and Arab appearance assaulted women in Cologne and other German cities on New Year’s Eve.

Petry’s deputy, Beatrix von Storch, who is a member of the European Parliament, even suggested on social media that police should be allowed to shoot at migrant women with children in cases of emergency to stop them entering Germany illegally.

A German Interior Ministry spokesman also said on Monday there could be no question of using force against the migrants.

“It goes without saying: no German policeman will use a firearm against people who are searching for protection in Germany,” spokesman Johannes Dimroth told a news conference.

“And it goes without saying that the use of firearms against people to stop an illegal border crossing is unlawful.”

Vice Chancellor and SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel said on Sunday Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) should monitor the AfD, adding that the party should not be able to “excrete their slogans” on public television.

In an attempt at damage control, Petry said in a statement on Monday her party was “strictly against” shooting at people who peacefully ask to enter the country.

“Border security needs to be guaranteed within the framework of existing laws and strictly in accordance with the principle of proportionality,” she added.

(Reporting by Joseph Nasr and Michael Nienaber; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Germany’s Merkel says refugees must return home once war is over

NEUBRANDENBURG, Germany (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel tried on Saturday to placate the increasingly vocal critics of her open-door policy for refugees by insisting that most refugees from Syria and Iraq would go home once the conflicts there had ended.

Despite appearing increasingly isolated, Merkel has resisted pressure from some conservatives to cap the influx of refugees, or to close Germany’s borders.

Support for her conservative bloc has slipped as concerns mount about how Germany will integrate the 1.1 million migrants who arrived last year, while crime and security are also in the spotlight after a wave of assaults on women in Cologne at New Year by men of north African and Arab appearance.

The influx has played into the hands of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose support is now in the double digits, and whose leader was quoted on Saturday saying that migrants entering illegally should, if necessary, be shot.

Merkel said it was important to stress that most refugees had only been allowed to stay for a limited period.

“We need … to say to people that this is a temporary residential status and we expect that, once there is peace in Syria again, once IS has been defeated in Iraq, that you go back to your home country with the knowledge that you have gained,” she told a regional meeting of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Merkel said 70 percent of the refugees who fled to Germany from former Yugoslavia in the 1990s had returned.

Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, has threatened to take the government to court if the flow of asylum seekers is not cut.

Merkel urged other European countries to offer more help “because the numbers need to be reduced even further and must not start to rise again, especially in spring”.

A MILLION MORE

Fabrice Leggeri, the head of the European Union’s border agency Frontex, said a U.N. estimate that up to a million migrants could try to come to Europe via the eastern Mediterranean and Western Balkans next year was realistic.

“It would be a big achievement if we could keep the number … stable,” he told the magazine Der Spiegel.

Merkel said all EU states should have an interest in protecting the bloc’s external borders, and all would suffer if the internal passport-free Schengen zone collapsed and national borders were closed.

AfD leader Frauke Petry told the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper that Germany needed to reduce the influx through agreements with neighboring Austria and a reinforcement of the EU’s external borders.

But she also said it should not be shy about turning people back and creating “border protection installations” – and that border guards should, if necessary, shoot at migrants trying to enter illegally.

No police officer wanted to shoot at a migrant, Petry said, adding “I don’t want that either but, ultimately, deterrence includes the use of armed force”.

Such comments evoke memories of Germany’s Cold War division, when guards in the communist East, led by Erich Honecker, were under orders to shoot people attempting to cross the heavily fortified border into the West.

“The last German politician who let refugees be shot at was Erich Honecker,” said Thomas Oppermann, a senior member of the Social Democrats.

(Additional reporting and writing by Michelle Martin in Berlin; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Mediterranean deaths soar as people-smugglers get crueler

GENEVA (Reuters) – More people died crossing the eastern Mediterranean in January than in the first eight months of last year, the International Organization for Migration said on Friday, blaming increased ruthlessness by people-traffickers.

As of Jan. 28, 218 had died in the Aegean Sea – a tally not reached on the Greek route until mid-September in 2015. Another 26 died in the central Mediterranean trying to reach Italy. Smugglers were using smaller, less seaworthy boats, and packing them with even more people than before, the IOM said.

IOM spokesman Joel Millman said the more reckless methods might be due to “panic in the market that this is not going to last much longer” as traffickers fear European governments may find ways to stem the unprecedented flow of migrants and refugees.

There also appeared to be new gangs controlling the trafficking trade in North Africa, he said.

“There was a very pronounced period at the end of the year when boats were not leaving Libya and we heard from our sources in North Africa that it was because of inter-tribal or inter-gang fighting for control of the market,” Millman said.

“And now that it’s picking up again and it seems to be more lethal, we wonder: what is the character of these groups that have taken over the trade?”

The switch to smaller, more packed boats had also happened on the route from Turkey to Greece, the IOM said, but was unable to explain why.

The increase in deaths in January was not due to more traffic overall. The number of arrivals in Greece and Italy was the lowest for any month since June 2015, with a total of 55,528 people landing there between Jan. 1 and Jan. 28, the IOM said.

Last year a record 1 million people made the Mediterranean Sea crossing, five times more than in 2014. During the year, the IOM estimates that 805 died in the eastern Mediterranean and 2,892 died in the central Mediterranean.

In the past few months the proportion of children among those making the journey has risen from about a quarter to more than a third, and Millman said children often made up more than half of the occupants of the boats.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Syrian opposition to go to Geneva as peace talks open

GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria’s main opposition group agreed to travel to Geneva, where the United Nations on Friday opened peace talks to end the country’s five-year-old war, but said it wanted to discuss humanitarian issues before engaging in political negotiations.

On the ground, opponents of President Bashar al-Assad said they were facing a Russian-backed military onslaught, with hundreds of civilians reported to be fleeing as the Syrian army and allied militia tried to capture a suburb of Damascus and finish off rebels defending it.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura had invited the Syrian government and an opposition umbrella group to Geneva for “proximity talks”, in which they would meet in separate rooms.
a
Until the last minute, the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) had refused to go. The group, which includes both armed and political opponents of Assad, had insisted it wanted an end to air strikes and sieges of towns and the release of detainees before talks could start.

Late on Friday, the HNC said it was going to Geneva, having received guarantees that its demands, outlined in a U.N. Security Council resolution last month, would be met, but it made clear its engagement in the process would initially be limited.

“The HNC will go to Geneva tomorrow to discuss these humanitarian issues which will pave the way into the political process of negotiations,” spokesman Salim al-Muslat told the Arabic news channel al-Arabiya al-Hadath.

The HNC said it had drawn up a list of 3,000 Syrian women and children in government prisons who should be released.

SUNDAY MEETING

De Mistura opened the talks on Friday by meeting the Syrian government delegation. He said that while he had not yet received formal notice that the HNC would attend, he expected to meet its delegation on Sunday.

“They’ve raised an important point of their concern, they would like to see a gesture from the government authorities regarding some kind of improvement for the people of Syria during the talks, for instance release of prisoners, or some lifting of sieges,” de Mistura said.

But he added this was a human rights point and “not even an issue to negotiate”, and had strongly suggested the best way to get such measures implemented would be to start negotiating in Geneva, by proxy or directly.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had made a major push to get the HNC delegation to Geneva, and the group said he had contacted it by phone to urge it to attend.

“Secretary Kerry has been in touch with all of his counterparts, including this morning with (Russian Foreign Minister) Sergei Lavrov … and with others, trying to find a way, a formula, in which we can urge the delegation or some version of the delegation to show up here,” a senior U.S. official said.

The Syrian government delegation, headed by United Nations ambassador Bashar al Jaafari, arrived at the talks on Friday afternoon but made no statement.

Another major force, the Kurds who control much of northeast Syria and have proven one of the few groups capable of winning territory from Islamic State, were excluded from the talks after Turkey demanded they be kept away. The Kurds say their absence means the talks are doomed to fail.

GOVERNMENT MOMENTUM

International diplomacy has so far seen only failures in a 5-year-old multi-sided ethno-sectarian civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million from their homes while drawing in regional states and global powers.

De Mistura’s two predecessors both quit in apparent frustration after staging failed peace conferences.

Since the last talks collapsed in 2014, Islamic State fighters surged across Syria and Iraq declaring a “caliphate”, the United States and its European and Arab allies launched air strikes against them, and Russia joined in last year with a separate air campaign to support Assad.

Moscow’s intervention in particular has altered the balance of power on the ground, giving strong momentum to government forces and reversing months of rebel gains.

The Syrian military and allied militia are seeking to build on gains in western Syria, and have turned their focus to opposition-held suburbs southwest of Damascus.

The aim is to crush rebels in the district of Daraya to secure the nearby military airport at Mezzeh, said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict with sources on the ground.

Rebels had rejected a government deadline for them to withdraw from the suburb of Mouadamiya – home to 45,000 people – by Friday, said Abu Ghiath al-Shami, spokesman for rebel group Alwiyat Seif al-Sham.

More than 500 families had fled, he said. “They are suffering a shortage of food, medicine, milk – there is no power, nothing,” he said, adding that 16 barrel bombs had been dropped on Friday.

A Syrian military source denied the use of barrel bombs, which have been widely documented in the war, and accused the opposition of exaggerating the conditions. “There has been progress by the army in the last days, some successes particularly in the Daraya area,” the source said.

Rebels say the fighting is of more concern to them than the fate of the negotiations. Asked about the future of the talks, Shami told Reuters he was “a bit busy” dealing with the fighting.

(Addional reporting by Lisa Barrington, Ali Abdelaty and Stephanie Nebehay; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Dutch suggest EU return migrants to Turkey as more arrive without case for asylum

BRUSSELS/THE HAGUE (Reuters) – The Netherlands floated an idea on Thursday to ferry migrants reaching Greece straight back to Turkey to stop a relentless influx into the European Union as EU officials cited a rise in the numbers of those who would not qualify for asylum.

The 28-nation bloc has all but failed to curb or control the influx of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa, more than one million of whom arrived in Europe last year, mainly via Greece and heading towards the EU’s biggest economy, Germany.

More than 54,500 people have already reached Europe by sea this year, including 50,668 through Greece, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

They keep flowing in despite stormy winter weather making the journey ever more perilous, a fact highlighted by a UNHCR report that 235 migrants were dead or missing already in 2016. On Thursday, 24 drowned when their boat sank off a Greek island close to the Turkish coast.

Much of the EU debate on how to handle the influx has focused on distinguishing people fleeing war, and thus eligible for international protection, from “economic” migrants seeking better lives without being under immediate threat.

“Indeed we have seen that the numbers of people arriving in Europe who don’t have a genuine claim to asylum have been rising slightly,” a spokeswoman for the European Commission told a regular news briefing on Thursday.

EU nations have grown unnerved by the continent’s worst migration crisis since World War Two, one that has jeopardised the bloc’s Schengen zone of passport-free travel over national borders that has contributed greatly to its vaunted prosperity.

In the latest idea for discouraging migrants from flooding into Europe, the head of a party in the Dutch ruling coalition said it was drafting a plan under which those arriving in Greece by sea could be dispatched straight back to Turkey.

Diederik Samsom said European countries would have to agree in exchange to take several hundred thousand refugees each year out of nearly 2 million currently in Turkey. The Netherlands now holds the EU’s rotating presidency and Samsom said it would seek to push for Europe-wide agreement on the plan.

Samsom also said improving conditions for Syrian refugees in Turkey meant it could soon be regarded as a safe country to which asylum-seekers could be returned.

Amnesty International quickly denounced the idea as “fundamentally flawed”, saying it would deny those arriving the right to have their asylum claims properly considered.

“Any resettlement proposal that is conditional on effectively sealing off borders and illegally pushing back tens of thousands of people while denying them access to asylum procedures is morally bankrupt,” said Amnesty’s John Dalhuisen.

“There is no excuse for breaking the law and flouting international obligations in the process.”

GERMANY, SWEDEN, DENMARK

The government of Germany, where more than a million migrants arrived last year alone, on Thursday agreed tighter asylum rules, while Sweden and Finland said they would deport tens of thousands of last year’s asylum seekers.

In another example of how wealthy European states are seeking to deter migrants, Denmark’s parliament on Tuesday passed measures allowing the confiscation of asylum seekers’ valuables to pay for their stay, despite protests from international human rights organisations.

The European Commission said on Thursday it was looking into whether Denmark’s move was undermining fundamental EU values.

While the overall number of arrivals is relatively low compared to the EU’s 500 million population, the uneven distribution among member states has put heavy pressure on public and security services in some, as well as fuelled support for anti-foreigner nationalists and populists across the bloc.

The EU border agency Frontex said on Thursday the number of Syrians arriving on Greek islands had declined in recent months, while Iraqi arrivals had risen.

“The percentage of declared Syrians among all of the migrants landing on the Greek islands has fallen considerably in the last several months,” Frontex said, adding that some 39 percent of those arriving in Greece in December were Syrians, compared to 43 percent in November and 51 percent in October.

The shifting numbers partly reflect how registration and identification of migrants has improved in Greece over the last quarter, meaning fewer people pass under false nationality.

Syrian nationality has been a common answer to the question of origin as people fleeing the devastating civil war in the Middle East country are seen as standing the greatest chance of successful asylum applications in the EU.

(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Sweden likely to deport up to 80,000 of last year’s asylum seekers

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden is likely to deport up to half last year’s record 163,000 asylum seekers either voluntarily or forcibly, presenting a major challenge to authorities, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said on Thursday.

Between 60,000 and 80,000 people will likely have to leave, Ygeman said, which would represent about 45 percent of the total number of applicants.

Sweden, with a population of almost 10 million, is one of the countries that has borne the brunt of Europe’s migrant crisis as hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and north Africa have moved north to wealthier members of the European Union.

Germany took in an unprecedented 1.1 million migrants last year.

Both countries have tightened asylum rules to stem the flow and force other countries to share the burden.

The Swedish government fears many people whose applications for asylum are rejected will go into hiding. Police will seek to find and deport them.

Of the 13,000 sent back from Sweden last year, 10,000 went voluntarily whereas 3,000 were forcibly deported.

Over the past few years Sweden has rejected about 45 percent of claims for asylum, but with last year’s record influx the greater numbers are putting an increasing strain on immigration and police authorities.

“We have a big challenge ahead of us. We will need to use more resources for this and we must have better cooperation between authorities,” Ygeman was quoted as saying by daily Dagens Industri.

Adding to the problem is a backlog of applications. The Migration Agency says recent arrivals will have to wait between 15 and 24 months just to have their applications assessed.

Ygeman said he thought chartered planes would be more widely used and hoped flights could be coordinated with Germany.

Germany deported 20,000 foreigners last year.

Sweden reversed its open door immigration policy late last year and has introduced border controls and identity checks to stem the flow of asylum seekers.

It is also working on making it more difficult for companies to hire immigrants without proper documents to decrease the incentives to stay in Sweden.

This week, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven promised more resources for police to deal with the increased workload because of the refugee situation.

(Reporting by Daniel Dickson and Johan Ahlander; Editing by Robert Birsel and Janet Lawrence)