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Refugee reception center planned in Kirkenes

Norway recieved more than 2300 applications for asylum only in August, Director of the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration Frode Forfang says.

Norwegian authorities plan to open a refugee reception center in Kirkenes for asylum seekers entering the country via Russia.

Location

Registration of asylum seekers will start taking place in the border town of Kirkenes already this week, the National Police Immigration Service writes on its website. The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) will also start establishing a reception center for refugees in the Kirkenes.

This means that asylum seekers entering Norway at the Storskog border-crossing point will no longer have to be sent to Oslo to apply for asylum.

“We are doing this in order to make the asylum process more effective and to relieve the authorities in Oslo for some of the pressure,” Director of UDI Frode Forfang says.

More than 200 Syrian refugees have crossed the border at Storskog in course of the last few months.

In 2014, 11.480 people came to Norway seeking for asylum. This year the number will probably be 14-16.000, UDI reports.

UDI is now in contact with the municipal authorities in Sør-Varanger, the Governor of Finnmark County and others partners in order to establish the refugee reception center as quickly as possible.