Dozens of asylum seekers march from Lapland into Sweden border town
Some 55 asylum seekers who took part in a protest against Finland’s asylum policies at the northern border crossing town of Tornio have left the country by walking across the border en masse from Finland to Sweden on Tuesday afternoon, according to police in Finnish Lapland.
Finnish police say that Swedish law enforcement officers picked up the asylum seekers who arrived from Finland, after first assembling at Victoria Square for the protest, on the Finnish side of the border.
The demonstrators said they were protesting Finland’s asylum policies, and had reportedly originally planned to demonstrate all afternoon.
A group of counter demonstrators was also at the scene, along with a large group of onlookers.
Via the Lapland Police department’s Twitter account at 3:26 pm on Tuesday, local police announced that the demonstrations had ended and that Tornio’s Victoria Square had been emptied of people.
This story is posted on Independent Barents Observer as part of Eye on the Arctic, a collaborative partnership between public and private circumpolar media organizations.
