(Local) The Swedish Migration Agency will no longer issue residence permits to all refugees coming from Syria, ending a generous policy which over the last six years has seen over 100,000 Syrians granted asylum in the country.
In September 2013, Sweden was the first country in the world to open its arms fully to those fleeing the country’s brutal civil war, with the agency ruling that all Syrians arriving in Sweden would be eligible for permanent residency.
But on Thursday, the agency announced in a press release that it was bringing the policy to an end.
“We had a very special situation in Syria and a special assessment which essentially meant that everyone was able to get a residency permit due to the general situation in the country,” the agency’s legal director Fredrik Beijer said in a video posted online.
