Sweden Turfs Out Prisoners to House Asylum Seekers in Jail

After running out of space to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who have arrived in Sweden this year, the Swedish Immigration Service has turned to the country's Ministries of Defense and Justice to provide places to house the migrants, Sweden's Dagens Nyheter newspaper wrote on Monday.

According to the newspaper, the Ministry of Justice has agreed to move 50 prisoners from Helsingborg prison to other detention centers, and use it to house asylum seekers instead. Individuals will also be placed at Kirseberg prison in Malmo, and Smalteryd close to Goteborg.

"The situation is acute. The entire community needs to pull together," said Nils Öberg, director of the Probation Service.

In addition, Sweden's Ministry of Defense has said it can offer 600 places in buildings located at its military facilities in Skogstibble west of Uppsala, Skonstavik close to Karlskrona, Alvdalen in northern Dalarna, and Myttinge at Varmdo.    

Asylum accommodation is opening at the Skogstibble firing range.

However, Sweden's Fria Tider newspaper reports that some appeals by the Immigration Service for emergency accommodation were not met with approval; an attempt from the Ministry of Education to provide housing for children in a school's sports hall failed after local parents threatened to stop sending their children to the school in protest.

"Accommodation for migrants did not materialize here, that's true," said Anette Öhman, headteacher of the school in Trelleborg, which had planned to use the experience to show the schoolchildren "the importance of being able to help."

The newspaper reports that 60 children seeking asylum were due to be temporarily housed, without their parents, in the school's sports hall. After complaints by parents, the children were sent, temporarily, to a facility in Landskruna instead.