Switzerland suspends admission of refugees in need of special protection

BERN (AA) – Swiss Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter has suspended the resettlement program to take in refugees in need of special protection.

The reason given by the Justice Ministry was that asylum capacity had been exhausted, according to the online news site Nau.ch.

According to the report, the resettlement program has been suspended since Nov. 30 and will be re-evaluated in the spring.

Affected by the decision, according to the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), are 800 refugees who cannot enter the country for the time being.

Under the resettlement program adopted in May 2021, Switzerland had agreed to permanently accept 1,820 refugees in very precarious situations proposed by the UN in 2022 and 2023. Switzerland has already taken in around 1,000 people under this program.

“Due to the war and the sharp increase in asylum applications since late summer, the asylum system has come under heavy pressure. Especially in terms of accommodation capacity and staff,” the SEM writes on its homepage.

In concrete terms, 70,000 people from Ukraine have been accepted this year. In addition, there would be a total of 25,000 additional asylum applications from other countries by the end of the year.

The SEM website also shows that the Swiss federal government also suspended the admission of refugee groups under similar programs in the 1990s, when many refugees from former Yugoslavia came to Switzerland.