A good practice from Sweden.
© Sweden/ resettlement of Syrian refugees/ The Syrian family Farid has been living in Torsby, Sweden for one year.
The oldest child Mahmoud and his younger brother Mohamed are visiting the yearly car rally in the forest outside Torsby. The rally is called Svenska Rallyt and are a major competition in Sweden.
The family Farid consists of Dad Mohamed Farid, Mother Lina, oldest child Mahmoud, younger brother Mohamed and youngest sister Bisan. Torsby is a village in the outskirt of Sweden with a population of 12.000 citizens. / UNHCR / J. Bävman / February 2015.
Background: Egypt / Syrian refugees / Syrian refugee Mahmoud Farid, 9-years-old, and his family had to flee from Syria to the Beit Al Aila neighborhood in the 6th of October City outside of Cairo, Egypt because of the war in their home country Syria.
Mahmoud was detained by Egyptian authorities for 5 days after his father put him on a boat headed towards Italy with other Syrian refugees . The Egyptian coast guard officers allegedly opened fire and killed two people.
According to his father, Mahmoud and his family face discrimination in Egypt and they live in a constant state of fear. Because they are without passports they are in a legal limbo. Mahmoud's father decided to send his son because he loves learning and he hoped that he might be able to go to school.
Mahmoud was also attacked by a group of Egyptian children in the neighborhood.
The family originally from Aleppo has been living in Torsby, Sweden for a year, UNHCR visit them again to see how they are doing and how life is on year later since they came. / UNHCR / J. Bävman / February 2015.
For many years, Sweden – through the Swedish Migration Agency – has devoted a part of its national refugee resettlement programme to UNHCR’s Priority Global Quota with a number of un-earmarked places.
UNHCR’s Priority Global Quota offers places for resettlement for refugees most in need of resettlement worldwide. It focuses on emergency and urgent cases, but can also accommodate specific cases that occur outside the focus of the programme. Due to a general global trend of unequitable distribution of resettlement quotas across different regions, UNHCR observes a greater need for more flexible and diverse resettlement quotas.
In 2019, Sweden reserved 600 of its total of 5000 national resettlement places to the Priority Global Quota. In addition, processing time for cases in the Priority Quota is accelerated. In some cases people can be resettled within weeks, or even days. Sweden’s Priority Global Quota and continued commitment to provide timely solutions for those refugees who are at heightened risk worldwide is a truly lifesaving engagement. The Priority Global Quota continues to be a highly effective protection tool at UNHCR’s disposal, allowing to provide urgent protection and solutions for refugees in particularly precarious situations, including refugees with urgent protection needs and women and children at risk.
Resettlement is an invaluable tool for providing durable solutions for refugees. For this reason, Sweden’s Priority Global Quota has officially been recognized as a good practice at the Global Refugee Forum.
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