Asylum applications in Sweden are declining - but the refugee camps in Lesbos remain full

- We will not have more refugees. We should have fewer, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven told Sydsvenskan last week.

Löfven believes that Sweden takes a disproportionately large responsibility in relation to other EU countries, and that the refugee reception has been unsustainable in the long run.

"Actually, the number of asylum seekers who come to Sweden should correspond to our share of the EU," the prime minister told the South Sweden.

However, after the record year 2015, the number of asylum applications has dropped every year - both in the EU and in Sweden.

Between January and September this year, 16 081 asylum applications have been submitted to the Swedish Migration Board. The same figure for the corresponding period 2015 was 73 103.

Since 2016, Turkey and the EU have a refugee agreement which, in short, means that Turkey, for financial compensation, will ensure that migrants do not continue on to Europe. But while the refugee policy is planned to be tightened further at home in Sweden, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now threatening to send millions of Syrian refugees to Europe. The threat is a response to the world's criticism of the country's offensive in Syria.

"If you try to describe our operation there as an invasion, then you make it easy for us," Erdogan said in a speech.

Although fewer people are seeking asylum in the EU, people continue to die in the Mediterranean to reach here and the refugee camps on the Greek island of Lesbos are overcrowded.

Sofie Kilander has worked as a volunteer at Lesbos in turns since 2017. She receives boats on the nights and works as a teacher at a school located 2 minutes from the refugee camp Moria, one of three camps on the island.

- It's more than it was when I was here in 2017. Now there are around 13,000 people here, but Moria has the capacity for about 3,000 people. Everyone who can't get a seat at the camp lives just outside on an olive field and the organizations in place crawl on their knees, she says.

The refugees currently in Lesbos are mainly from Afghanistan and Syria, but many are also Kurds and some are Turkish political refugees.

- When I came here for the first time many people talked about going to Sweden, but they no longer do that. Now people talk more about Canada, the Netherlands and Germany, says Sofie Kilander.