Cold shoulder: Norway deports asylum seekers to Russia in -30 Celsius temperatures

Norway has begun using buses to move asylum seekers across its Arctic border with Russia, despite criticism from the UN and temperatures approaching 30 degrees below zero.

Immigration police confirmed on Tuesday night that a bus carrying 13 single men left the reception centre at Kirkenes for the Russian border at around 6pm. Eight of the men had volunteered to go, police said.

Immigration minister Sylvi Listhaug said the refugees would be taken to the Russian towns of Nikel and Murmansk.

“If Norway is to have a fair asylum policy, we need to send back those who are not entitled to protection,” Listhaug told parliament on Tuesday evening. Any refugee with a valid Russian visa would be deported, she said.

Norway’s tough new asylum policy was adopted by a broad majority in parliament last year after more than 5,500 asylum seekers cycled to Norway from Russia through the border at Storskog – a safer and cheaper route than risking a rubber boat in the Mediterranean. Some 30,000 people claimed asylum in Norway in 2015.

However, the UN warned last week that Norway was likely to be in breach of the UN refugee convention.

“They can end up in a no-man’s land where they risk freezing to death,” Vincent Cochetel, the UN high commissioner for refugees, said last week. “There are large cracks in the Russian asylum system. We believe Norway is wrong to regard Russia as a safe country for people who need protection.”

In an unprecedented move by the authorities, refugees were told their applications for asylum had been rejected only a few hours before their planned deportations, giving them no chance to appeal, according to Halvor Frihagen, an asylum lawyer in Oslo.