Arsonists Attack another Migrant Center in Sweden

Since the start of the year, 15 arson attacks throughout the country have targeted refugee reception centers and apartments, reducing some to cinders.

"A civilized country like Sweden cannot accept that housing centers of asylum seekers should become prey to arsonists." Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said on Twitter Tuesday, AFP reported.

Local inquiries have been launched, but the national police authority NOA could get involved if links are established between the various attacks, said police spokeswoman Carolina Ekeus.

The latest attack in the small hours of Tuesday morning occurred at normally tranquil Munkedal, a town of 10,000 inhabitants in southwestern Sweden.

No one was seriously injured, although some of the 14 migrants living there suffered slight smoke inhalation. They were swiftly rehoused.

"I thought I was going to die, it was horrible, but now it's OK, I'm safe," said Ahmet, a Somalian refugee interviewed by Swedish public radio SR.

In ten of the recent spate of cases, criminal intent has been established beyond doubt.

On June 19, two Molotov cocktails were hurled at a building housing migrants.

On Aug. 16 a Christian cross was set ablaze near a migrant center and, the same day, another center was evacuated after the discovery of a bag containing flammable liquid.

That center, in the central town of Arboga, housed two Eritrean migrants who were accused of a knife attack at an Ikea store three days earlier that left a 55-year-old woman and her 28-year-old son dead.

Sweden, which is home to 9.8 million people, is one of the European Union countries that has taken in the largest number of refugees as a proportion of its population.

Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said last week that up to 150,000 people could seek asylum this year in the Scandinavian country, which is struggling to find housing for the new arrivals.

In the first nine months of the year, more than 73,000 people applied for asylum in Sweden.