That's according to the latest forecast by the Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket), which estimates a total of 28,000 people will seek asylum in the country this year, newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports.
In 2016 by contrast 29,000 people sought asylum in Sweden.
Migrationsverket has also changed its target for the number of asylum cases that it expects to process this year, which is now 80,000. That’s 15,000 fewer than the April forecast, and 25,000 fewer than a prediction from the start of the year.
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Standard processing times are now not expected to return until the second half of 2018, instead of late 2017 as was previously suggested.
The long processing times mean that many children have turned 18 during their asylum application period, and that in turn means more are having their application rejected, according to the authority.