Finland Expects Thousands of Refugees to Enter Via Russia In 2016
Finland’s national public-broadcasting company, Yle, cited the Lapland border service, who predicted that in the year 2016 about 7,500 refugees could enter Finland through the border with Russia. This forecast was made based on the current rate of arrival of asylum-seekers.
Since the beginning of the year around 200 refugees crossed the Finnish-Russian border through the checkpoints Salla and Raja-Jooseppi. Most of the refugees were Iraqis, Afghans, Nepalese and Syrians. Last year 700 applications for asylum were filed by people arriving through the same border.
Previous reports indicated that Finnish authorities suspect some organized crime organizations of smuggling the refugees across the border. Finnish police are investigating 20 such cases. It is believed that smugglers charge up to $10,000 for their services.
Last year 32,000 refugees entered Finland.