A teen's flight from Iraq

Sweden takes its job as a refuge seriously. It provides free housing, classes in Swedish, healthcare services, a $400 startup check, and a daily cash stipend of about $10 to those who settle here. The provisions for unaccompanied child refugees are even more extensive. They start with the state providing adult supervision and temporary guardians and, often, help with managing their own money for the first time.

"We also know that even if they're 17 now, our responsibility won't end when they turn 18," says Nils-Erik Färnbrink, refugee coordinator in Danderyd, a county northeast of Stockholm that recently announced it would accept five refugee children. "They must finish high school, they must have housing, and maybe other support."

The government recently raised its reimbursement to counties that take in refugees in the hope of getting the children out of shelters and into foster homes and group homes. But even those communities that have agreed to accept refugee children say it usually takes several months to line up homes and schools.

***

At the bustling train station in downtown Stockholm where Hesha showed up Jan. 30, a stranger ignored his request in halting English for directions to the immigration office. Confused, the teen wandered around the cold city for several hours until he overheard a man speaking Kurdish and asked for help.

The man whisked him onto a subway train and took him straight to the immigration center. There, Hesha applied for asylum, becoming one of 59 unaccompanied Iraqi minors to do so that month.

He now lives with about 40 other children from half a dozen countries in a shelter in a rented section of a mental hospital south of Stockholm. The shelter was meant to serve as overnight accommodation for children who just arrived in the country. Instead it has turned into a long-term living arrangement for such teens as Hesha who have nowhere else to go.

On a recent day, a quiet group of Somali girls clad in colorful veils filled the dishwasher after breakfast. One of them reminded a young man from Afghanistan that it was his turn to vacuum the kitchen floor, which he did. "We work hard on gender equality here, even though it's tough sometimes to make these boys understand why we do it," says Tobias Kronqvist, deputy manager at the shelter. "They're in Sweden, now."

In the hallway, a cluster of Iraqi youths listened to music, like typical teenagers. At times, however, the children's frustrations rise to the surface: Staffers occasionally have to break up fights, and child psychologists have been called in to help teens who became depressed.

"There's a lot of pressure on these kids to make it here and to show their families that they pulled it off," Mr. Kronqvist says. "They've gotten away from the war, but they still have problems."

***

Nearly four months after his arrival in Sweden, Hesha, too, is struggling to keep his spirits up. He is anxious to get out of the shelter. But he worries he will be placed in a town far from Stockholm's immigrant neighborhoods where he has already befriended some Kurds.

Looking older than his 17 years, Hesha is soft-spoken and polite. But he grows visibly tense when talking about the sacrifice his family made to send him to a safe place and about the uncertainty he faces now. "Not knowing what will happen," he says, "that's what's so difficult."

More than anything, he fears being sent back to Iraq. "There is no future for me there," he says. "All we have is war. Saddam was not good, but at least we could go to work, go to school, live normal lives."

Hesha attends a high school that recently began offering a Swedish language program for child refugees. His dream is to learn Swedish well enough to enroll in regular high school in the fall, and eventually become a doctor. Permanent residency would pave the way for his mother and 12-year-old brother to move here.

"I'm always thinking of my family," the teen says. "I wish I could bring everybody here. Then I wouldn't have to worry that someone will die."

Page: 1 | 2