Sweden struggles to settle 10,000 refugees a week calling in army

Sweden is bearing a disproportionate brunt of the European migrant crisis, taking in at least one in seven of the people to reach Europe by sea this year, and the strain is showing.  The Scandinavian country has been settling 10,000 or the refugees every week.  Sweden called in the army to help with the crisis earlier this week, and as of today, new, temporary border controls come into effect to deal with the influx.

Emma Löfgren is the Deputy Editor of The Local Sweeden, an English language news website. She says that while most Swedes remain committed to assisting refugees, the country is starting to show strain because of the impact thousands of refugees who arrive weekly are having on resources like housing and transportation.

Tensions have flared up across Sweden.  Last month, a string of arson attacks on buildings-set-to house asylum seekers sent a strong message. In an incident last week, a bus driver let a group of migrants and their children know exactly what he was thinking, asking them in Swedish, "Why do you come here if you don't follow our rules?"

Among all this, Prime minister Justin Trudeau is standing by his election pledge to welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of the year.  It's an ambitious plan and one that has many Canadians working around the clock now to fulfil.  Government workers say 10,000 refugees with the potential to make the trip have already been identified, the same number of refugees that Sweden has been receiving every week.

Debbie Douglas, the executive director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, is one of them.  She says bringing 25,000 refugees to Canada by the end of the year will be doable but difficult because it will require a lot of preparation and expansion of many services from housing to education to mental health support.   

We did request an interview for this story with Canada's minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, John McCallum, but he was not available. 

This segment was produced by The Current's Julian Uzielli and Ines Colabrese.