Alina Sydorenko, a Ukrainian woman in her 30s, who has fled Odessa in southern Ukraine, tried to register with the agency for four days in a row without success. “After an hour they said ‘there’s no point, you might as well go home’,” she said.

The EU’s temporary protection directive gives everyone seeking asylum in Sweden the possibility of receiving assistance with food and housing, and the right to work, but it requires applicants to register at the Migration Agency, which is easier said than done.

Although the agency have offices at multiple locations across the country, they are only open from 9am-3pm.

“The queue starts as early as two-three o’clock in the morning,” said Malin Aronsson, a volunteer and pastor at Centrumkyrkan church in Sundbyberg outside Stockholm, where the Migration Agency have an office. “That’s when people start seeking shelter in the church.”

One man, who wanted to be anonymous, said that people queuing have been sent home at lunchtime on at least one occasion, after staff closed the office in advance, when they realised they wouldn’t be able to process any more applications.

Despite the fact that the weather has been sunny in the Stockholm suburb, conditions are cold for those who have been forced to stand still for hours.

It’s also cold outside the agency’s office in Malmö, where Sydorenko has been trying to register. The first time she started queueing at 10am, but since then she’s started arriving before the office opens, in the hope that she’ll receive help before it closes.

“Today we arrived at 7am. It’s so cold, we stood here for five hours,” she said. “Tomorrow we’re going to try to get here at 5:30am”.

She thanked the volunteers who have been handing out food and warm socks to the people waiting in line. 

The Migration Agency told the TT newswire in a written statement that the biggest challenge was “the fact that we have a limited amount of employees who can register applications”. “At the same time,” it said. “The need is huge and escalating”.

The agency told the newswire that they had registered 1,710 people last Monday, compared to an average of 30 people per day normally.

But according to prognoses, Sweden could be due to receive as many as 4,000 refugees per day, with the Migration Agency warning that there may be an even larger number of arrivals going unreported.

The Migration Agency is planning on hiring 500 new staff, Sveriges Radio Ekot reports.

In the office in Malmö, staff have begun prioritising the elderly, as well as children who arrive by themselves. This means that Sydorenko and others like her are constantly being moved to the back of the queue.

Even though Sydorenko says she understands why the agency is keeping her waiting, the bottleneck caused by the lack of manpower is causing her a lot of frustration.

“Many of the people coming here were forced to flee with nothing. They’ve travelled a long way and have no money with them. We want to work and live like we did before,” she told the newswire.

Despite her irritation, she still extended her thanks to the local office in Malmö, who she said were really taking their time to explain the situation to the people waiting in line. But, she added, there must be a simpler way to solve this issue.

“Shouldn’t you be able to register online?” she said.