Sweden has begun housing migrants in heated tents in wintry conditions due to a lack of available housing, despite a sharp drop in asylum seekers, an AFP reporter at the scene reported on Friday.
Sweden has begun housing migrants in heated tents in wintry conditions due to a lack of available housing, despite a sharp drop in asylum seekers, an AFP reporter at the scene reported on Friday.
“The first asylum seekers have moved into the 17 temporary tents” raised in Revinge in southern Sweden, migration agency section chief Rebecca Bichis said.
The camp of white tents erected on a grassy field in the tranquil countryside was a sight unseen in the Scandinavian nation since the Balkans war in the early 1990s when Sweden took in many refugees.
On Friday, temperatures in Revinge hovered around five degrees Celsius, as rain lashed the area.
Around 200 people will live in the 17 tents, which sleep 12 people each, Ms Bichis said.
So far, only single men were being housed in the tents, as families with children and those with special needs were being prioritised for proper housing.
The Revinge tents are a temporary solution pending the construction of a more permanent camp, Ms Bichis said.
“We dont know how long they will stay in the tents, it’s impossible to predict. We are taking it from day to day,” she said.
