Country takes in more lone children relative to its population than any other European nation, with 12,000 expected this year

As Aatifa sings along softly to an Eritrean music video showing refugees who drowned in the Mediterranean, tears roll down her cheeks. The 16-year-old reached Sweden last week on her own after making her way through Libya and Italy.

“I came to Sweden because it is better than other countries,” she says. Aatifa is one of thousands of unaccompanied children from the Horn of Africa and the Middle East who are heading to Sweden, the largest recipient of lone child refugees in Europe relative to its population. More than one in four children entering Europe alone endure long and hazardous journeys to seek safety. .

Germany is the main recipient of refugees in Europe. This year, Sweden will take more than came into the entire EU just five years ago.

While fewer adult refugees are now opting for Sweden, according to the Migration Service, as word gets out about an acute shortage of jobs and housing, numbers of unaccompanied children seeking asylum have risen sharply since May. Officials estimate that 12,000 will arrive this year – almost twice the level of 2014 – with a similar number expected next year.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Aaatifa, 16, from Eritrea, arrived in Gothenburg last week via Libya and Italy. Photograph: David Crouch/The Guardian

Sweden has experienced nothing like it since 70,000 children were evacuated there from Finland after war broke out with Russia in 1939, the foreign minister, Margot Wallström, suggested last week as she criticised Sweden’s neighbours for not taking more refugees.

Smugglers have tended to deposit their child cargo in Malmö in the south of Sweden, but now most children arrive in Gothenburg, the country’s second city, further north along the coast. Between 200 and 400 children are turning up each week, more than one in five of all asylum seekers.

“There are a lot of myths about why children come here,” says Birgitta Korpe, head of the unaccompanied child and adolescents unit in Mölndal, south of Gothenburg. “Very seldom are they here to make money to send back home. It is very expensive to send a child here. Most often they send a son in the hope that he will survive and make a better life for himself. It is an act of love.”

Typically, the children are boys aged 14-16, she says, though babies have also been smuggled into the airport and abandoned there. They come from Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia, Syria and Eritrea; only about 15% are girls. Most are smuggled in by boat or bus, but children are also known to hang on to the underside of trains and trek by foot to get to Sweden, sleeping in the forests. Often they have not eaten for days. “They come here because Sweden is friendly, we take good care of them,” Korpe says.

The Journey: A refugee's odyssey from Syria to Sweden Read more

The sharp increase in child refugees arriving in Mölndal has forced the authorities to open emergency accommodation in empty schools and a church hall. Entrepreneurs have been calling Korpe, offering to house children privately at the state’s expense. Mölndal spent 200m (£15m) kronor last year on child asylum services, much of it on accommodation.

After a week or two in reception centres, children are placed in residential care while their asylum applications are processed, which can take months. Then they are housed in flats, if they are old enough, or with foster families.

When they first arrive, children are reluctant to speak about their experiences until they are certain they are safe, says Matilda Brinck-Larsen, who runs a home for 36 unaccompanied child refugees in Lillekärr, a quiet suburb of Gothenburg. When they finally open up, many tell harrowing stories.

“They have been on the run for months, people have done them harm, so the first thing we have to do is convince them that now they can stop running,” Brinck-Larsen says. “Some of them cry themselves to sleep, or think they still need to break out of here. I tell them that I and my staff are in place of their parents, here to support them with structure and routine – and a lot of love.”

When the facility opened last October, there was a lot of opposition from residents fearing that traumatised children from war zones would cause trouble, she says. But this was slowly changing, and offers of help were coming in: this week two retired teachers offered to teach the children before they are ready to go to school.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Matilda Brinck-Larsen runs a residential facility for 36 unaccompanied child refugees in Lillekärr, a suburb of Gothenburg. Photograph: David Crouch/The Guardian

Asylum is a contested issue in Sweden, with the country’s liberal consensus coming under strain. Recent opinion polls suggest the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats have doubled their support to 25% in the past year to become the country’s largest party, with their relentless message that refugees cost too much money.

But there are also signs that the mood may be shifting in response to the refugee crisis in Europe. On Wednesday, thousands of people came to Gothenburg’s central square to hear political leaders express their solidarity with refugees and call for obstacles to asylum seekers to be removed. Hundreds of candles were lit for those who had died on their journey owing to the lack of legal and safe routes. The nationwide Metro freesheet covered its front page with the national flag and a headline “Welcome to Sweden!”, devoting the entire issue to refugees.

While Aatifa (not her real name) sings and weeps as she scrolls through Facebook to see the family and friends she has left behind, Brinck-Larsen insists that the test of a democracy is whether people will stand up for those less fortunate than themselves.

“It’s not like we are suffering here. We pay taxes to solve problems, that’s what they are for,” she says. “I am privileged to take these children under my roof for a few months – they are survivors.”