'Sweden was like a paradise at first – but then reality hits'

Sweden in Focus · May 7, 2025 · 32m

In 2013 Jamil Walli, a journalist, filmmaker and painter, moved to Sweden from Damascus as an exchange student.

Two years later, tens of thousands of his compatriots fled Syria to seek shelter in the country he has since come to call home.

As a journalist, he documented the stories of those fleeing persecution as part of a project for The Local where he interviewed asylum seekers in Arabic about their new lives in Sweden and how they were adapting.

This makes him very well placed to talk about his experience of what became known as the refugee crisis of 2015 when an unprecedented 163,000…