Word: asylumed
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...million Iraqis who have left since the U.S. invasion in 2003 have remained in the Middle East, a growing number are trying to make their way out of the region, in search of refuge and the promise of a new life in the West. Having granted asylum to 2,330 Iraqis in 2005, Sweden received nearly four times that many last year. In December, 1,566 Iraqis arrived, nearly five times the figure in February 2006. And with Iraq's civil war still raging, Swedish officials say they are bracing for a possible 35,000 this year...
...having to rebuild shattered lives and find work in an alien society. For many, the trauma of Iraq is inescapable. Recent arrivals like Alaa say they fear being hunted down by sectarian rivals in Stockholm. "We don't know who is who here," says Alaa. In a Swedish government asylum office, he was shocked to see Iraqis in "long beards and short pants" who looked like extremist Sunnis. "I'm scared that among those people who Sweden helps are crazy Salafis who might kill me," he says...
...Better View From the Top On paper, Nyamko Sabuni is a poster child for successful integration. She came to Sweden from the Congo when she was 12, after her father claimed political asylum. Now, 26 years later, she's Sweden's Minister for Integration and Gender Equality. But in a country where 16% of the population are immigrants or the children of immigrants, Sabuni is the only member of an ethnic minority in the ruling coalition. And Sweden isn't the only country where, compared to their diverse populations, leaders look pale. "People often have very low expectations of immigrants...
Every Iraqi's flight is a boon for people smugglers. Sweden grants asylum freely, but Iraqi refugees need to get to the country first; for that, they need a fake European passport. Most Iraqis flee first to Jordan; from there smugglers arrange flights to Istanbul, where it is easy to find illegal European Union passports - "red passports," as the Iraqis call them. Thus equipped, it's into the E.U. and on to Sweden. Suad Turky, a 29-year-old Shi'ite religious student from Baghdad, paid a smuggler $10,000 to secure a false passport and a ticket to Stockholm...
...Sweden, the government has opted to protect the Iraqis arriving, citing U.N. refugee guidelines to protect those fleeing, rather than pursuing them for using forged documents to enter Sweden. "They all say, 'We had illegal passports but we have thrown them away,'" says Gunn Sundberg-Hjelm, an asylum officer at the Swedish Migration Board. Other than checking their fingerprints against international databases, there is no practicable way to prove that the Iraqis are who they say they are. "We don't turn anyone back," says Sundberg-Hjelm. "Look at the circumstances they have left...