fear of iraqi refugees in sweden, absence in britain

Not that I'm not glad that someone is talking about Iraqi refugees' issues still, but it'd be nice if the same amount of attention paid to Sweden was paid to the situation in places like Britain, but I understand that it's way harder to film absence.

A total of 39,610 Iraqis applied for asylum in European countries in 2007-50% more than in the previous year, still making up the single largest group of asylum seekers in Europe, but the numbers accepted don't seem to be changing significantly. According to an ECRE report 295 Iraqis in the Middle East were referred to the UK for resettlement in 2007, of these referrals UNHCR has records for 24 actual departures to the UK. UK officials have stated they'd like like to bring 200 Iraqis over per year in addition to the 600 UK employees they are planning to accept over a two year period, but that still hasn't materialized into reality. According to the report Finland(127,) the Netherlands(125,) Ireland(200) and Sweden(732) were all able to resettle Iraqis referred by UNHCR in larger numbers-even on top of all the Iraqis that are being smuggled into the country as of late, even on top of the fact that it recieved ten times the number of Iraqi asylum applications the UK did last year, Sweden still managed to resettle more than 30 times the number of UNHCR referrals that the UK did.

At this rate Britain might also be outdone by American efforts at helping a different kind of Iraqi. Baghdadpups has been helping US forces who have befriended Iraqi animals on their tour and just can't leave them behind, and will rescue your animal of choice from tough Baghdad streets and bring it to the safety of an American home for the low low price of $4000(US.) Each. The site operates solely on donations from the public and to date they have raised enough money to rescue at least 14 dogs and cats which are featured on their site so far, brought over in the four months since February 08, with claims of many more to come whose identity will be revealed once they have arrived in the US. If they can keep up this rate it'll put the satire at dogoriraqi.com on a whole other level.

ECRE also bashes the EU European Border Management Agency (FRONTEX) for trying to keep Iraqis from entering their territory, failing to distinguish between refugees and other types of migrants, targeting Iraqis considered "illegal immigrants" and attempting to prevent their migration by increasingly dangerous journeys while the legal avenues for Iraqis to migrate are becoming more difficult. Since November 2003 Germany removed refugee status for some 18,000 Iraqis it had granted during Saddam's reign, though last year Germany had one of the higher rates of accepting Iraqi asylum seekers at 85%, up from 11% in 2007. As well forced returns are still happening from the UK, Poland, Greece and Italy, as they now are happening in Sweden. Sweden took in over 18,000 Iraqis in 2007, almost half the total number of asylum applications in Europe, Germany took in the second largest amount at under 4000, but every other European country accepted Iraqis in the hundreds, if at all. If most of Europe had taken on even one tenth the burden that Sweden did(and if the countries that actually started this war would take on more than that,) we might not see Iraqis being deported from there today.