There seems to be increasing agreement that more must be done for refugees fleeing Iraq - but as Syria and Jordan effectively close their borders and other European countries continue to return Iraqi asylum seekers home, there are few countries willing to take in the displaced.

Britain has agreed to take persecuted Iraqi translators and their families who have worked with its armed forces, but is still returning some asylum seekers to Iraq. According to the London-based thinktank the Institute of Race Relations, one was killed by a car bomb in Kurdistan in September just weeks after being sent back.

Norway, once renowned for taking in refugees, has now effectively closed itself off despite only having an unemployment rate of less than 2%.

So it should be no surprise that, of the Iraqi refugees who have made it beyond Syria and Jordan, the greatest number have headed north to Sweden, attracted by a reputation for generous welfare and refugee protection laws.

Some 20,000 have arrived in the last year alone, swelling the Iraqi diaspora to some 100,000, aid workers say.

"There is no country better than this," 16-year-old Haidar Fozi Karim, who fled Baghdad for Syria two years ago with his family before leaving them to go to Sweden, told AlertNet at a refugee centre in Stockholm.

"For my family, Syria was better than Iraq but there is no work and nothing to do. My family said that if I saw my future here I should go."

Like many others, Haidar joined a group slipping into Turkey by land and then making his way to Stockholm on a commercial airliner.

There he was identified by the authorities and taken to a well-equipped centre for the growing number of underage Iraqis making the journey, often alone but funded by parents.

In 2006, official figures showed that nearly half of all Iraqis who came to Europe ended up in Sweden - a country of 9 million residents that also gave asylum to tens of thousands of refugees from the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

One immigration lawyer told Reuters some of her clients had no firm aim of going to Sweden when they left Iraq, but were encouraged there by smugglers often charging $10,000 a person.

Observers say the plight of Iraqis seems to have struck a chord in Sweden, with immigration courts tending to be more lenient with them than with refugees from other states.

CAN'T HELP ALL

The Swedish government wants other nations to shoulder more of the burden, warning the current situation is unsustainable.

"We worked constantly on providing people who have a need with shelter but I would like to point out Sweden can't help all people," immigration minister Tobias Billstrom said in February.

Sweden is generous compared to other countries. Asylum seekers are given housing in refugee centres or apartments - although around half stay with friends or family. They are allowed to work but if they cannot find employment, they get welfare payments.

If they win their asylum cases, they can stay indefinitely and bring their families to join them in a country that was last at war with its neighbours two centuries ago.

Experts say around a fifth of Iraqis are returned to other European countries they passed through on their way to Sweden on the grounds that they should have sought asylum there first. And even within Sweden, the rules seem to be tightening.

Swedish rights groups were outraged after migration courts ruled that Iraq was not a conflict zone, obliging refugees to prove that they are in danger on an individual basis.

Rights groups called the ruling absurd and said Iraq was clearly in a state of conflict.

But in reality, experts say, courts continue to accept Iraqis, especially from the more dangerous south and centre.

And while there are signs of unease among the generally liberal Swedes about the new arrivals, the general political environment remains much more supportive of Iraqi refugees than probably any other country.

The Swedish Red Cross says its near quarter of million strong membership actively pushes it to take up the refugee cause - something rare in other European countries. They say Iraq is simply not safe enough to return people to.

"We have been principle that you shouldn't send people back to where you are risking their lives," said Dick Clomen, who heads asylum issues for the Swedish Red Cross. "It is important that a country like a Sweden does not compromise its policy. We have to uphold the standards."

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