Municipalities resistant to taking refugees accepted by Finland
Local authorities say state assistance is too small
A family from a Central African country where conditions are unstable, in which the mother has been raped and lacerated, and the daughter has also been raped, have fled to Malawi where they are virtually without medical care.
The mother would desperately need treatment. Other children have told about how their relatives have been attacked with machetes.
A group of young Armenian men wait in Azerbaijan, where they had fled after being kicked and beaten in the army.
And then there is an Iraqi man who was injured in a shooting, who is being cared for by a relative.
All of these people are waiting to get into Finland.
They have been granted refugee status by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They are emergency cases, who often require immediate high-quality care.
Finland has promised to take them in.
Residence permits were granted already in July, five days after the request by the UNHCR came to Finland.
However, they have not been able to come to Finland because no local authority has stepped forward to settle them.
Immigration officials have had to tell the UNHCR that Finland cannot accept these emergency cases because no municipality has agreed to take them.
Immigration officials and Finland’s network of Employment and Economic Development Centres have been looking for places to settle 31 emergency cases, and no vacancies have been found. Local authorities say that they lack the facilities and personnel to take them.
Municipalities say that they lack resources, but there is also an ongoing dispute between state and local authorities on how much money the state should pay municipalities for housing refugees.
Currently municipalities are entitled to EUR 6,200 a year for each refugee under the age of seven, and just under EUR 2,000 for settling older refugees. The amounts have stayed the same for years.
Local authorities say that the compensation is insufficient. The tension was not eased after the state proposed a ten per cent raise in the state compensation, which many municipalities felt was inadequate.
The state has committed to compensate for the costs of treatment for refugees requiring special care for up to ten years.
The state reimburses municipalities for the costs of housing asylum seekers, and for family unification to the tune of more than EUR 50 million a year.
Finland has agreed to settle 750 “quota refugees” as well as 100 emergency cases.
In addition to the money question, local authorities are having to deal with in increasing flow of asylum seekers who have been granted residence permits, and their families, who often require many kinds of municipal services.
Recently the city of Mikkeli agreed to settle three Cubans from the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
The mother would desperately need treatment. Other children have told about how their relatives have been attacked with machetes.
A group of young Armenian men wait in Azerbaijan, where they had fled after being kicked and beaten in the army.
And then there is an Iraqi man who was injured in a shooting, who is being cared for by a relative.
All of these people are waiting to get into Finland.
They have been granted refugee status by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They are emergency cases, who often require immediate high-quality care.
Finland has promised to take them in.
Residence permits were granted already in July, five days after the request by the UNHCR came to Finland.
However, they have not been able to come to Finland because no local authority has stepped forward to settle them.
Immigration officials have had to tell the UNHCR that Finland cannot accept these emergency cases because no municipality has agreed to take them.
Immigration officials and Finland’s network of Employment and Economic Development Centres have been looking for places to settle 31 emergency cases, and no vacancies have been found. Local authorities say that they lack the facilities and personnel to take them.
Municipalities say that they lack resources, but there is also an ongoing dispute between state and local authorities on how much money the state should pay municipalities for housing refugees.
Currently municipalities are entitled to EUR 6,200 a year for each refugee under the age of seven, and just under EUR 2,000 for settling older refugees. The amounts have stayed the same for years.
Local authorities say that the compensation is insufficient. The tension was not eased after the state proposed a ten per cent raise in the state compensation, which many municipalities felt was inadequate.
The state has committed to compensate for the costs of treatment for refugees requiring special care for up to ten years.
The state reimburses municipalities for the costs of housing asylum seekers, and for family unification to the tune of more than EUR 50 million a year.
Finland has agreed to settle 750 “quota refugees” as well as 100 emergency cases.
In addition to the money question, local authorities are having to deal with in increasing flow of asylum seekers who have been granted residence permits, and their families, who often require many kinds of municipal services.
Recently the city of Mikkeli agreed to settle three Cubans from the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
Helsingin Sanomat