Dmitry and Elena Gaffarov, of Uzbek origin, were taken away at dawn on March 20 by several police vehicles as their stunned neighbors looked on. The couple had lived in Sweden for 22 years. She worked at a school cafeteria in Sundsvall, 375 kilometers north of Stockholm. He was a mechanic for the local public transport company. Neither their relationship with their only son, a 21-year-old born in Sweden, nor the ties they had built in the country affected the decision by immigration authorities, who decided in February to send them back to a country they had not set foot in since 2004.
Mate, a 17-year-old high school student of Georgian descent, born in Sweden, will also have to leave, as will Rabea Allah Wais, 95, who arrived from Iraq 20 years ago. Sitting in a Stockholm café, Manvel Minasyan, Shahrdad Sherbabaki and Paula Hanna described the “shame” they felt the day their residence permits were not renewed. Born in Armenia, Egypt and Iran, they are between 21 and 26 years old. They spent their adolescence in Sweden: “We didn’t decide to come here, but now this is our home, and we are being treated like criminals.”
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