Sweden agrees to accept camp refugees

Sweden and a dozen other European countries have agreed to accept Somali and Eritrean refugees from camps in Kenya and Sudan.

The refugees will be accepted into Sweden as part of quotas agreed with the UNHCR - the refugee organ of the United Nations.

"It feels good that Sweden can take part in such as large humanitarian operation," Dan Eliasson, the director-general of the Swedish Migration Board, told Sveriges Radio's news program Ekot.

Three further camps on Iraq's border with Syria will also be emptied in cooperation with the USA. The camps currently house mostly stateless Palestinian refugees.

"These camps are in the some of the most difficult places on Earth where the living conditions are dreadful. Now we can help to ensure...that these people that live there can come to Europe and the USA," Eliasson said.

Sweden is set to accept a couple of hundred refugees of the total of almost 3,000, according to Ekot.

Sweden has been a driving force within the EU to push member states to accept more of the so-called quota refugees. Sweden is the EU country that accepts the most, with a total of 1,900 last year, of the 4,800 that arrived in Europe.