Finland’s prime minister has offered his private home in northern Finland to asylum seekers, at a time of massive flow of refugees to the Western Europe through land and sea.
Juha Sipila told state media that his home in Kempele, located in 500km north of the capital Helsinki, could be used to accommodate asylum seekers after the end of the year.
“We should all look in the mirror and ask ourselves how we can help … My house is not being used much at the moment. My family lives in Sipoo [east of Helsinki] and the prime minister’s residence is located in Kesaranta,” Sipila told public broadcaster YLE.
The prime minister also called on other citizens, churches and voluntary organisations in the country of five million inhabitants to open their facilities to asylum seekers.
Recently, thousands of people from Iceland, another Nordic country, offered their homes to refugees through a Facebook page after the government announced it would accept only 50 refugees.
Maija Karjalainen, secretary of international affairs for the right-wing Finns Party, said that the prime minister’s move was positive, but could not be implemented by many Finns.
“It is a move to be an example for others in helping refugees, but we should not forget that the prime minister is in a unique position, having a house available for this purpose,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Not all Finns have the space, finances or the capacity to do the same.”
The anti-immigration Finns Party is in a coalition government with Prime Minister Sipila’s Centre Party.
Finnish citizens who talked to Al Jazeera have varied views about the prime minister’s initiative.
“This [the PM’s move] is upholding and continuation of the Finnish tradition to deal with this sort of crisis,” Reeta Paakkinen, a 36-year-old a non-fiction writer from Helsinki, told Al Jazeera.
“In 1939, when the USSR attacked Finland, hundreds of thousands of Karelians were evacuated from their home region to West Finland and accommodated in fellow people’s homes … My own family was among these people, so I really appreciate the move of our prime minister.”
After the 1939-1940 Winter War, started after an invasion on the USSR, approximately 430,000 Finns lost their homes.
At the end of the war, Finland was forced to cede part of the Karelian Isthmus, which is located in Russia today. – Aljazeera.
