Traffickers 'made $3m' on Italy ship

biko wrote: »

General focus seems to be on refugees fleeing here while no focus is on the fact that foreign aid is reduced to be able to pay for immigration.
For instance asylum offices in Sweden, like West Gotaland, gets more money (from Swedish Aid) than the entire country of Moçambique!
Just imagine what could be done in the 3rd world with all of that money (where everything is a fraction of the price it is in Sweden).

A group of 30 asylum seekers spent the night in a cold bus outside a reception centre in the woods south Östersund in central Sweden. They do not want to move into the centre, but demand to be returned to Malmö.

On Wednesday, Swedish Radio Jämtland spoke to some of the 40 or so asylum seekers, who had arrived on the bus earlier in the day. They said they had not been told where they were going. As they entered the bus in Malmö, in southern Sweden, they expected to be taken to Stockholm, or "max 40 minutes outside" the capital, one of the asylum seekers told the reporter. Instead they spent 15 hours on the bus, arriving to the dark and the cold in village 20 kilometres south of Östersund, where a former military barracks have been turned into a refugee reception centre.

Several dozen people seeking asylum in Sweden refused to leave their bus when they found out that they would be living in a tiny town. They demanded to be brought back to a big city, and police refused to evict them from the vehicle.

The incident happened in Grytan, a småort in central Sweden. The term refers to a small rural community of 50 to 199 residents where houses are built close enough to each other. Grytan, located not far from the city of Östersund, has a housing center for those waiting for their application for asylum to be considered by the authorities.

The center was the destination of some 40 people, who arrived in the village on Wednesday, but when they saw it they were not happy at all, reports The Local.

"I am 75 years old and come from the Middle East. Then I get sent to a place that looks like this," a man from Syria told to the local Östersunds-Posten daily, pointing to the icy road. "It is dangerous for me to be here."

The group refused to leave the bus and demanded that they were returned to Malmö, Sweden’s third city located in the south, or any other big city. The police were called on the scene, but they refused to evict the protesters.

“We can’t force them off the bus. The case would have to go through the Swedish Enforcement Authority, which can issue an eviction order and only then can the police get involved,” officer Bengt Stadin said, Radio Sweden reported.

Fredrik Bengtsson, a Swedish Migration Board spokesman, said that it was up to Swedish officials to choose where they would offer accommodation to asylum seekers.

“We have seen cases where asylum seekers have certain ideas of what awaits them in Sweden and when that doesn’t match reality, then problems arise. They don’t feel what they see here meets their expectations. We’ve had a large amount of people come to Sweden this year and so we can’t place them where they want,” Bengtsson said.

Asylum seekers are not prisoners and can live wherever they want after they are cleared to enter Sweden, but they would have to take care of their own accommodation themselves, he added.

“We are in dialogue with these individuals, but we are very clear that this is the accommodation they’ve been offered and that if they don’t want it they have to arrange their own accommodation while their asylum applications are being processed,” Sophia Öhvall Lindberg of the Migration Board said.

But the protesters say they feel cheated by the board as they were never told where they wanted to place them.

"No one told us where we were going. Then we were told that we would be taken 40 minutes from Stockholm and in the end we had gone 15 hours," one of the man told Sveriges Radio Jämtland.

The board said the Grytan housing center is now home for about 150 people. About a dozen of the protesters agreed to move in, while three others found their own housing.

But about 40 people continued protesting and started taking turns to guard the bus, so that it didn’t simply leave them in the town.

“We want a solution to this situation,” Öhvall Lindberg said.

The standoff continued for two days. On Friday, the protesters finally agreed to vacate the bus after Swedish officials pledged to move them within three months.

In 2014 Sweden took in its highest number of asylum seekers since 1992, when people fleeing the Balkans wars reached the Scandinavian country. A total of 81,300 people found refuge in the country last year, almost twice as many as 54,300 in 2013. The refugees come mostly from Syria, which accounted for 30,600 asylum seekers in 2014.

"We have experienced sometimes that asylum-seekers have a idea of what to expect in Sweden. When that image does not correspond to reality, it becomes a problem."

RobYourBuilder wrote: »

Funny you should mention Sweden. There's a group of asylum seekers currently threatening to go on hunger strike there.





https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=6058405



http://rt.com/news/219387-sweden-asylum-seekers-protest/




http://www.thelocal.se/20150101/refugees-protest-rural-sweden-re-location

Reporter R, Asylum seeker A

R: "And what would be a better place?"

A: "Malmö or Stockholm or any city but not with cold weather, and here exist bear and wolf and more animals. We can't stay here."

R: "But I live here?"

A: "Yeah, but I say to you, we are Arab people. We can't stay here in that weather."

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=78&artikel=6058506

Do these people think that Stockholm or Malmo, both which have huge housing shortages, even for the natives, are warm or something? It seems that beggars can be choosers. It should be noted that asylum seekers in Sweden can live anywhere they want if they can arrange their own housing. Like living with relatives or friends. But these guys just want Sweden to give them free housing in the city of their choice.

An asylum-seeker could be a baker who has had his bakery destroyed, a lawyer who lived in a city which has been flattened, an artist, a business person etc

Remember, asylum seekers cannot work in the EU.

Dallas Unsightly Meatball wrote: »

Everybody should have the right to life.

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

So just leave the boats at sea for them all to die?

efb wrote: »

Do we?

RobYourBuilder wrote: »

EU residency and eventually citizenship is the jackpot.

●Free movement throughout the 28 member states.
●Easier visa processes for non EU western countries(America, Canada, Australia etc.)
●Free or heavily subsidised education.
●Child benefit.
●Much more job opportunities and the chance to earn a much higher wage.
●Social housing.
●Free medical care.
●A much higher standard of living for you and your family.
●If you get status, then you can bring over your family through EU family reunification directives.
●Welfare.

If they get in, it's the best risk they will ever take and best eight large they will ever spend.

RobYourBuilder wrote: »

I'm European, so yeah. Where the f*ck else would I live?

The Diabolical Monocle wrote: »

Its not xenophobic if there's practical reasons. No society can survive if it cannot decide who joins it and in what numbers.
Nationality is a pretty practical criteria to give/deduct points on.
More so when there's high numbers involved.
Let's you know how probable a person is to stay legally/illegally, probability that they actually will be capable of returning.

jackofalltrades wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying that unless people are for open borders, then they are either a racist or a xenophobe.

Suryavarman wrote: »

Yes that is pretty much what I am stating.