UN’s top country to live in faces huge surge in asylum seekers

NORWAY is facing a surge in asylum seekers, often because a short stay at a refugee centre in what the UN calls the world’s best place to live beats living back home.

>“Some are tricked into coming. Others know they won’t get refugee status, but living in a refugee centre for a while in Norway is better than living as a Gypsy in a slum in eastern Europe,” Erna Solberg, the Norwegian government minister in charge of immigration, said yesterday.

She said the number of asylum-seekers coming to Norway increased to 18,000 so far this year, compared to about 15,000 in all of 2001, and 4,000 in 1997.