Abdi Xuseen, a 28-year-old Somali who also sought asylum in Denmark, said “people will hide” or go on hunger strikes if they are forced to leave Europe.
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But given the large number of asylum-seekers to be expelled, Sweden would use specially chartered aircraft to take them out of the country, Ygeman said, Sky News reported.
Patrik Engström, head of Sweden’s border police, told Dagens Industri that his officers would from now on be working “much more intensively” on returning rejected applicants.
Romanian border police said Thursday that they had rescued 119 asylum-seekers from Africa – including 34 children – who were on an inflatable dingy in the Mediterranean, trying to reach Europe.
He was quoted by Swedish media saying: “We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000”.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani visited Sweden in December and agreed with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven to open talks on repatriating Afghan nationals whose asylum bids have been rejected. “And many of these people, for instance those who have come from the war in Syria but also other groups, will be permitted to stay in Sweden”, he said.
“It seems as if European countries are in a contest to win the title of ‘least willing to accept asylum seekers, ‘” said the report from the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children, which represents 41 independent children’s rights institutions in 34 European countries.
Officials in Sweden are preparing to deport 60,000-80,000 refugees.
Around 160,000 migrants applied for asylum in Sweden in 2015, the report said, with an estimated 45 per cent refused.
Most of the refugees initially arrived at the town in southern Sweden on ferries from Germany and were promptly registered in the town. Under the bloc’s regulations, would-be-refugees have to file for asylum in the first country of entry, which in most cases is Italy or Greece, and shall be returned there if they move somewhere else.
Greek government spokeswoman Olga Gerovasili accused the Commission of “blame games” and said it had failed to act on a programme agreed previous year to relocate tens of thousands of migrants and refugees stranded in Greece.
Almost a quarter of Switzerland’s population is foreign and immigration is a major political issue, especially as Europe grapples with its biggest migrant crisis since World War II.
A plan to ferry back refugees from the Greek islands to Turkey has been presented by the Netherlands, which now holds the European Union presidency.
European Union statistics show most of those rejected come from the Balkans including Albania and Kosovo, some of Europe’s poorest countries.
Just under 2 million foreigners lived in Switzerland at the end of 2015, more than two-thirds of whom were European citizens.
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The Italian navy meanwhile said it had recovered six bodies from a sinking dinghy off Libya – and in Bulgaria, the frozen bodies of two men, believed to be asylum seekers, were found near the border with Serbia.
