STOCKHOLM (AP) – Thirty-five asylum-seekers have asked to be relocated from a refugee housing facility in southern Sweden because they believe it’s haunted by ghosts, officials said Wednesday.
The asylum-seekers were spooked by flickering lights and noise in the plumbing system at the facility in Grannaforsa, a small village in Smaland province, said Magnus Petersson, a local manager at the Swedish Migration Agency.
Petersson said 35 of the 58 people living in the shelter came to the agency’s office in the nearby town of Alvesta on Tuesday, demanding to be relocated. They reluctantly returned to the shelter at the end of the day after being told there were no ghosts – and no alternative housing available – Petersson said.
“I know that in their faith there is a different view on spirituality,” he said. “We were responsive to them but somewhere you have to use your common sense and believe in science.”
Sweden has received a record 150,000 asylum-seekers this year, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The large influx has left the Swedish Migration Agency scrambling to find housing, including in remote villages surrounded by thick forest and roaming wildlife.