Sweden: refugees to be sent back
01 July 2003
Sweden has followed EC governments by introducing visa requirements for refugees arriving from the former Yugoslavia. The government says that 70,000 arrived from the region in 1992 and 13,000 came in the first quarter of 1993. It blames other European governments for failing to share the task of taking in refugees.
The government is adopting the same policy towards refugees from the former Yugoslavia as that set out in the agreement reached at the Copenhagen meetings of EC Interior Ministers in June (see Statewatch vol 3 no 3). This says that people can be returned to the former Yugoslavia if it is considered "safe" for them to do so. The first group to be "targeted" in Sweden are the 1,800 Albanians from Kosovo which the government considers "safe" for them to be returned to. Petrit Abduraman, a spokesperson for the Albanians from Kosovo, said the government consider them "economic migrants but every one of us lives in fear of returning home".
At one of the refugee camps at Tallnas in northern Sweden with 600 refugees there were a series of racist attacks in July. Two burning crosses were put on buildings, windows were smashed and there was an arson attempt on the accommodation block. The refugees include people from Somalia, Syria and the former Yugoslavia.
Inter Press Service 2.8.93; Guardian 14.7.93.