Denmark to set up ‘Ukrainian villages’ for refugees

COPENHAGEN: Denmark plans to house Ukrainian refugees in temporary "Ukrainian villages" set up in former schools and hospitals, a cabinet minister said on Friday as the country prepares to receive up to 100,000 people fleeing the war.

The approach breaks with normal practice in the Scandinavian kingdom, which has for decades followed very restrictive migration policies, and where asylum seekers and refugees are placed among the country’s population of 5.8 million.

"We started with the normal integration policy, but with the estimates that are in front of me, if we just continue, we won’t recognise our welfare society," Migration Minister Mattias Tesfaye said in an interview with daily Berlingske. According to the minister, the number of Ukrainians arriving in Denmark could exceed 40,000 by April 17, double the number of Syrians who fled the war in that country in all of 2015.