Many of those moved into an asylum return centre have held jobs for years and can speak the language
“Sweden did this for us,” said Sofiye*, making a supportive scooping up gesture with her hands. “And then, bam.” She dropped them to the ground.
Sofiye, who has three children, arrived in Sweden from Uzbekistan as an asylum seeker in 2008, and for much of that time she was able to build a life in the Scandinavian country. The family lived in a flat in a Stockholm suburb and Sofiye worked for the municipality in the home help department. She learned Swedish and her children went through the Swedish school system. Her youngest son was born in Sweden and her 18-year-old son, Hamza, who is studying in college to be a technician, doesn’t know life anywhere else.
Three years ago, however, after unsuccessfully seeking refugee status four times, Sofiye lost her right to work and is now living under the threat of a deportation order. For the last two years she and two of her children have been living in limbo in an asylum return centre in an industrial area near Stockholm’s Arlanda airport
The situation is causing her so much anxiety that for the last two months she has lost her appetite and been vomiting with stress. As she spoke to the Guardian she held a plastic bag into which she regularly retched.
