Asylum applications increasing despite no beds guarantee in Sweden

Last week saw the highest number of refugees in history seeking asylum in Sweden in a seven day period according to the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket).

The latest figures from Migrationsverket show that 10,201 people applied for asylum in the Nordic nation last week.

This group included 4,333 refugees from Afghanistan and 2,719 from Syria.

 

More than a quarter of the asylum seekers were unaccompanied minors, with 2,827 children making the journey to Sweden without an older relative or guardian.

 

The new statistics were released days after Sweden's Migration Minister Morgan Johansson announced that due to the huge recent influx of refugees, the Scandinavian country could no longer guarantee beds for all new arrivals.

 

"The urgent problem today is that the number of asylum seekers is increasing faster than the number of accommodation places," he said at a press conference on Thursday.

 

"Sweden today can no longer guarantee accommodation places," he added.

Migrtionsverket and The Local Sweden