Surge in number of underage asylum seekers

The total number of child asylum seekers arriving in Finland without a parent or guardian could increase sevenfold from last year, says Veikko Pyykkönen, a top official at the Ministry of the Interior.
      There have been about 500 underage asylum seekers this year so far, up from just 98 in the whole country last year.
     
“From the summer, the number of arrivals has surged tremendously, and the pace has increased toward the end of the year. We face a new phenomenon in Finland”, Pyykkönen says.
      The capacity of refugee reception centres is set to run out soon, as the total number of asylum seekers could rise to more than 4,000 this year.
      “Figures in Finland have never exceeded 4,000 before. The situation is acute”, Pyykkönen says.
      Slightly over half of underage asylum seekers arriving in Finland without a guardian are from Somalia, about one in four are from Iraq, and nearly ten per cent are from Afghanistan. The applicants represent more than 27 nationalities.
     
Typically, an underage asylum seeker will report his or her age as between 15 and 17. This year about one in four of them have been girls, which is more than in previous years.
      Juha Holopainen of the foreigners’ unit of the Helsinki Police says that the typical final leg of the journey for asylum seekers coming to Finland usually goes through Sweden.
      Last year there were 36,000 asylum applicants in Sweden. This year there have been 20,000 so far. Sweden has been taking a tougher line than before on granting asylum, which has also been reflected in the number of applications into Finland.
     
About one in three applicants have been registered as asylum seekers in some other European country.
      “From Somalia, people generally come along the southern route to the Mediterranean, which means that the first ports of arrival in Europe are Malta, Italy, and Greece”, Holopainen says.
      “From Iraq and Afghanistan, people first arrive in Turkey. After that, they move on either to the Greek islands or onto the continent via Istanbul. There are no systematic border formalities in the Schengen region; once in the zone, moving around is very easy.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Espoo surprised at planned asylum-seekers´ reception centre in Otaniemi (21.11.2008)
  Record numbers of underage asylum seekers arrive in Finland recently (20.10.2008)
  Number of children seeking asylum close to record (18.8.2008)

Links:
  Ministry of the Interior: Unaccompanied minor asylum seekers
  Finnish Immigration Service (MIGRI)