Finland split over biggest refugee influx since Russian Revolution

HELSINKI (AFP) — Finland is experiencing its biggest influx of refugees since the Russian Revolution with hundreds of migrants arriving each day via Sweden, but their presence is angering some in the recession-hit country.

Finland, whose Lapland steppe forms the European Union’s northernmost border, expects to receive 25,000 to 30,000 asylum applications this year, compared to 3,600 in 2014.

Most of those arriving are from Iraq, Somalia or Afghanistan. After an exhausting and often perilous journey to Europe, they travel to the northern Swedish town of Haparanda, turning their backs on Sweden’s long processing times to instead cross the border by foot into the Finnish town of Tornio. Most of them then head south to the capital Helsinki or other towns.

According to the Finnish Immigration Service, hundreds of migrants have been crossing into Finland every day in recent weeks, the biggest influx since 1919 when “Whites” fled the “Reds” during the Russian Revolution.

“Our economic problems are less worrying than the migrant crisis,” Centrist Prime Minister Juha Sipila said Friday, when 30,000 people protested in Helsinki against the government’s harsh austerity measures aimed at reviving the country’s moribund economy.

More than 11,000 refugees arrived in Finland in the first eight months of the year, a number five times fewer than in neighboring Sweden — but Finland’s population is half the size of Sweden’s and the country lacks the infrastructure Sweden has to welcome large numbers of refugees.