Sweden said it expects to expel up to 80,000 migrants whose asylum requests are likely to be rejected, as another 18 people, including children, drowned off Greece yesterday in a desperate bid to reach Europe.
As the continent grapples with efforts to stem a record flow of migrants, Swedish Minister for Home Affairs Anders Ygeman said the mass expulsions of people who arrived in the Scandinavian country last year would require the use of specially chartered aircraft and would be staggered over several years.
“We are talking about 60,000 people, but the number could climb to 80,000,” he told Swedish media, adding that police and migration authorities had been tasked with organizing the scheme.
Photo: TT News Agency via AP
Of the 58,800 asylum requests handled by Swedish migration authorities last year, 55 percent were accepted. However, many of those requests were submitted in 2014, before the large migrant flow began.
Ygeman said he used the 55 percent figure to estimate that about half of the 163,000 asylum requests received last year would likely be rejected.
Sweden, a country of 9.8 million, is among the EU states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita.
More than 1 million people traveled to Europe last year — the majority of them refugees fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — in the continent’s worst migration crisis since World War II.
Most cross by boat from Turkey to Greece, with the UN saying more than 46,000 people have turned up on the EU member’s beaches so far this year, while 170 people died making the dangerous journey.
Flimsy boats packed with migrants are still arriving on Greek beaches every day, the passengers undeterred by Europe’s cold, wintry conditions.
Yesterday, the bodies of 18 migrants, including nine children, were discovered off the Greek island of Samos after their boat capsized and 17 others were still missing, the Greek coastguard said, a day after seven other bodies were found near the island of Kos.
With the influx showing little sign of abating despite the cold weather, many countries — including Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and France — have tightened their asylum rules in a bid to discourage new arrivals.
Reflecting the rising tensions, Brussels on Wednesday blasted Greece’s handling of the crisis and warned it could face border controls with the EU’s passport-free Schengen zone if it does not protect the bloc’s frontiers.
Greece is not the only country under fire: Denmark has faced heavy criticism after its lawmakers passed a bill this week allowing authorities to seize valuables from refugees in a bid to deter new arrivals.
Some have likened the move to the Nazis’ confiscation of gold from Jews during the Holocaust, with Human Rights Watch denouncing the bill as “despicable.”
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