Protesters demanded to be taken back to Malmo or to a big city

A group of asylum seekers in Sweden started a protest when the location of provided accommodation was not to their liking.

The 40 Syrian refugees had arrived in Grytan, some 330 miles north of Stockholm, on New Year's Eve, but some refused to get off the bus.

Instead, 34 refugees announced they would remain in their seats until they were taken elsewhere, and some started a hunger strike.

A group of asylum seekers in Sweden refused to get off a bus to their accommodation because they thought it was too 'cold and rural'

Grytan is a small village located in Jamtland count, about ten miles south of the city of Östersund, which has a population of around 60,000.

'They were disappointed when they came here. It was cold and not a big city,' Bengt Sandin from Jamtland County Police said.

The asylum seekers, who arrived in Grytan from a centre in Malmo, claimed they had been under the impression that they would be driven a short distance, but instead travelled for 15 hours.

The Swedish Migration Board, however, say they were perfectly clear about where the bus was heading and that information was provided for the asylum seekers before they left Malmo.

'You are offered a place and there are currently no places in southern Sweden,' Swedish Migration Board's Pierre Karatzian told Expressen.

'These are the places on offer, or you have an opportunity to sort out accommodation on your own.'

Moaweyh Ramliy, a Palestinian man who fled from Syria, said he and the other protesters wanted to go back to Malmo, or to a city, where he said it would be easier for them to learn Swedish.

'We dont want to be here, we want to go back to Malmo,' he told Aftonbladet.

The 40 Syrian refugees had arrived in Grytan, near Östersund, some 1,050km (650 miles) north of Malmo on New Year's Eve, but some refused to get off the bus

He later added: 'There are now several of us who are going on a hunger strike.'

After the first night sleeping on the bus, ten of the protesting asylum seekers moved in to the accommodation, and were followed by the others on Friday.

Foreign nationals seeking asylum in Sweden are offered temporary accommodation for one to three months, but cannot chose where the housing is located.

'We have experienced sometimes that asylum-seekers have a idea of what to expect in Sweden,' The Migration Board's press officer Fredrik Bengtsson told Aftonbladet.