Every day thousands of refugees — most of them from Syria — are risking their lives on sea and land to reach the safety of Europe. Not all of them make it. The photo of toddler Aylan, who washed up on a beach in Turkey, has become a symbol of the pain and peril refugees face in search of a better life. Some goverments are trying their best to assist them and, in very special cirumstances, some individuals are going above and beyond to play their part too. One of those individuals is Swedish Eurovision queen Carola Haggkvist.

Speaking with Sweden’s web media DN.se, Carola has explained her emotional journey — and that of two Iranian refugees — that has taken her from Sweden to Kos and back again.

Touched by the news footage she has seen in recent months, Carola recently flew to the Greek island of Kos with several suitcases full of clothes and shoes to hand out to people in need. There she met two Iranian refugees and decided to help them get to Sweden. Once the men were there — and carrying all their worldly belongings and Carola’s phone number — they asked Malmö police to call her. Naturally the officers were skepitcal that these men knew the Carola…and that she had invited them to Sweden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbyQ44gDaRk

Carola explained what went down next to DN.se.

I got a phone call from the Malmö police, who were informing me that two Iranian refugees had asked them to call this number, and speak to me personally. The policeman didn’t believe, at first, that I was who I said I was, but after a while, I convinced him, and the men took a train to Stockholm, where I met up with them and helped them settle in the Refugee Center in northern Stockholm.

But what triggered this gesture of kindness?

“I just had enough,” she said. “The suffering of those poor people and their desperation just gnawed at me from the inside. I knew I had to do something, I just wanted to give love, clothes and money.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnrwggtnvV8

Previously the picture of toddler Aylan had a profound effect on her. “I couldn’t sit around and do nothing anymore,” she said. “I booked the flight to Kos, where many of the refugees arrive from Bodrum.”

Carola witnessed hunger and thirst and horror on a thousand faces. She met up with shaken refugees, still recoiling from their experience of fleeing their homes and setting sail in leaking rubber boats.

“It was a lifechanging experience,” she said. “I look at life now in a completely different way. I’ve met so many people, who have told me their story, and I’ve cried with them. These people need help!”

And Carola means business. She, along with several other Swedish musicians, artists and athletes, organized the Hela Sverige concert to support the refugees. The concert took place in Globen — this year’s Eurovision venue — on September 29.

https://instagram.com/p/8B_r4NOmCx/?taken-by=wiwibloggs

She understands that there are skeptics who question her motivation, but knows that helping those in need is more important than shade from cynics.

“Some said I was doing this to boost my career, and I understand the people who say that, me being an artist and all,” she said. “But I am also a human being with feelings, and it breaks my heart to see people suffer. If this inspires others to do the same, that is all that matters. Believing in kindness and doing good to others is the key to change the world.”

This is how you do it. wiwibloggs salutes Carola for her kind gesture and her big heart.

Follow all of our Sweden news here

 

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Julian
Julian
8 years ago

Population is strongly expanding in Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, Central America. It is normal that they will migrate to areas where population is collapsing – Europe, Nord America. Europe has seen in history other such migratory waves. These bring changes in culture, religion, habits. For example, because it was talked a lot here, if there are more young people in a country crime rate will be higher. Migrants also because of their statute of tolerated and oppressed are more inclined towards building organised crime networks. Many people think that the current migratory wave will retreat if the Middle East… Read more »

Rayman
Rayman
8 years ago

+ 1 to Mario = Legend’s comment below, and no problem, Racal, thank you for your comments here :). I too felt down after facing this debate daily in news papers and other media, only to find it here too. I’m glad not all of the comments in this section are hateful and unreasonable, but some still humane.

Also, to be on topic: Carola, whatever you think of her as a person did a very kindhearted thing here. I wish more people would react as she to this crisis.

davve
davve
8 years ago

refugees should stay in their own areas. and stop wanting to have our richest..without any work.

Racal
Racal
8 years ago

@FriedCookie, Rayman and Mario Legend: Thank you! 🙂 I was getting a bit depressed after all these comments full of hate and ignorance. Thank God, there are still people capable of discernment and acceptance.

Mario = Legend
Mario = Legend
8 years ago

Wow when did this turn into Politibloggs lol, terrible play on words. Huge respect for Racal and everything has said here… +1 to all comments. It’s a real shame that others define a religion – or be it, members of a religion – with what they read on news websites, (or rather anonymous websites with no reliable source what-so-ever). Perhaps you should try studying a religion and find out about its beliefs before you start throwing your extreme views around, that are based on your opinion alone. Extremists are a small minoirity that have caused millions to flea their homes.… Read more »

Rayman
Rayman
8 years ago

Max: Why don’t you check it out yourself? It says here very clearly why there are more reports of rape in Sweden than in most other places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden#cite_note-paradox-3 Specie? We are all the same specie as we’re all humans, remember? So coincidentally, the two most immigration-friendly countries are also brainwashing their people into hating their own culture? And you’re not gullible for believing that? I don’t hate my culture at all (neither the Swedish or the Finnish, as I’m Swedish-Finnish), so yeah, I guess they missed my brain? Yes, Malmö is a multicultural city, does that make it non-Swedish? No,… Read more »

FriedCookie
FriedCookie
8 years ago

There’s so much hate…
ALL refuges aren’t horrible thugs and bloodthirsty killers. They’re just people!
It’s natural that crime rats are going up. More people, more crime. Logic.
And sure, you hear about all the horrible stuff that happens on the news. But that’s because it’s NEWS. News is made to be enjoyable, not trustworthy. They only bring up the worst cases.
The few that turn out to be harmful usually have had a terrible childhood. They need help, not rejection.

davve
davve
8 years ago

refugees will take over sweden more and more… when i am old Sweden will definitely be an out of control islamic state…

Max
Max
8 years ago

@Racal

Is your head nice and warm buried under all that sand?

Racal
Racal
8 years ago

@Max H: You can’t blame me for not giving any credit to these websites: they themselves are unable to give their sources and they are obviously obsessed about Islam and Muslims. This is all what their articles are about. Seriously, what kind of information is that?! And what do you expect from me exactly? Do you seriously expect that I will suddenly become convinced because you’ve thrown a bunch of far-right websites at me? The only thing you’ve managed to do is getting me scared: I can’t believe that there are people who actually read and believe all this bs.… Read more »

Max
Max
8 years ago

Well if the Swedish press in no good for you

How about Danish news 10news
10news. dk/?p=1615

Australian Newsweekly
newsweekly. com. au/article.php?id=4837

Actual footage from liveleak
liveleak. com/view?i=32e_1369753031

And a site from Sweden featuring real swedes explaining why they are forced to leave

http://www.whyileftsweden. com/

Let me guess, none are good enough for you, its just ALL DEM RIGHT WING NUT JERBS BEIN MEANIES!

Max
Max
8 years ago

Well if the Swedish press in no good for you

How about Danish news 10news
http://10news.dk/?p=1615

Australian Newsweekly
http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=4837

Actual footage from liveleak
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=32e_1369753031

And a site from Sweden featuring real swedes explaining why they are forced to leave

http://www.whyileftsweden.com/

Let me guess, none are good enough for you, its just ALL DEM RIGHT WING NUT JERBS BEIN MEANIES!

Max
Max
8 years ago

There’s plenty of sources, google is your friend.

Max
Max
8 years ago

@Racal

You clearly are going to dismiss any source that doesn’t conform to your narrow beliefs. I can’t tell if you wilfully want the islamification of Europe, or if you are just naive and don’t want to pull your head out of the sand!

Racal
Racal
8 years ago

: OMG, you don’t seriously believe that the links you posted here are actually from the Swedish police, right? The one about no-go zones is a WordPress blog (so written by a random guy), quoting one unidentified police officer. This what you call official sources from the Swedish police? Same comment as to Mario: don’t believe everything you read on the internet, please.

Max
Max
8 years ago

@Racal

I’m not Christian, I’m atheist, and yes I’d condemn anyone embracing the extreme parts of any religion.

But as it happens we don’t have Christian, or Buddist terrorists killing 1000s of innocents, we don’t have a group called Hindu state invading countries enforcing harsh punishments.

Islam is not a religion, its a political ideology seeking to control like Communism and Fascism.

Max
Max
8 years ago

@Racal

We can all see the sort of person you are. Someone who disregards facts in order to push their far left multi culutral agenda against the wishes of the public.

I don’t think anyone thinks the Swedish police, and a website for investors are “far right”

And you acknowledged 40% as foreign born in Malmo, but that is ignoring/twisting what I said, its 40% of school kids that are Muslim, aka the future!

Racal
Racal
8 years ago

: Ahahah, thanks for your “sources” (= a bunch of extreme-right websites). And about your “Jizya” wikipedia article, please note that the Bible prohibits divorce and recommends to kill cheating wives. I don’t see you bashing about Christians?

Anyway, I think everybody here understood what kind of guy you are. I’ll leave everybody make their own opinion. 😉

Racal
Racal
8 years ago

@Mario esc.fan: I’m not from Sweden, but I looked it up very quickly and what Max is saying is of course not true. According to Wikipedia, Malmö has a population of 318.000 people. 30% of the population of Malmö has been born abroad, and another 11% are Swedish-born but with foreign-born parents. That makes 41% of the population (so 130.000 people) having a foreign background. Among these 130.000 people, from Muslim countries, we have 10000 people from Iraq, 3700 people from Lebanon, 3300 from Iran and 2000 from Turkey. TOTAL = 19000, which is 6% of the population (including people… Read more »

Max
Max
8 years ago

@Racal, your post shows just how naive you are Ok you asked for sources here you go en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Jizya “is a religiously required per capita tax levied by a Muslim state on non-Muslim subjects permanently residing in Muslim lands” “Jizya is mandated by the Quran and the Hadiths” gatestoneinstitute. org/5195/sweden-rape Heres the rape statistics, swedenreport. org/2015/05/18/police-yes-there-are-no-go-zones-in-sweden/” Here is the Swedish police acknowledging the 55 no go shariah zone,s where they cant go without being pelted with rocks or facing riots, for daring to enter a muslim area frontpagemag. com/point/202538/swedish-city-overrun-muslim-crime-turns-superhero-daniel-greenfield The info on Malmo And also while searching the 40% found… Read more »

Max
Max
8 years ago

@Racal, your post shows just how naive you are Ok you asked for sources here you go https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Jizya “is a religiously required per capita tax levied by a Muslim state on non-Muslim subjects permanently residing in Muslim lands” “Jizya is mandated by the Quran and the Hadiths” http://www.gatestoneinstitute. org/5195/sweden-rape Heres the rape statistics, “http://swedenreport. org/2015/05/18/police-yes-there-are-no-go-zones-in-sweden/” Here is the Swedish police acknowledging the 55 no go shariah zone,s where they cant go without being pelted with rocks or facing riots, for daring to enter a muslim area http://www.frontpagemag. com/point/202538/swedish-city-overrun-muslim-crime-turns-superhero-daniel-greenfield The info on Malmo And also while searching the 40% found… Read more »

Mario esc.fan
Mario esc.fan
8 years ago

So Malmo instead of a beautiful butterfly looks more than an ugly caterpillar…Really sad…This percentage of 40% is really huge! Just Wow!

Racal
Racal
8 years ago

@Max H: I probably should not speak to someone who just called other human beings a “specie”, since that says a lot about you, but anyway… No Muslim will ever tell you that it’s ok to kill or to rape a woman, or that you should pay a “non believer tax” or whatever you call that (never heard about that actually). Extremist Muslims will, but do you know what extremist Christians do? In the US, there’s a friendly little Christian group called the KKK who still think that they are higher human beings than black people. In France, when they… Read more »

Max
Max
8 years ago

Rayman If you genuinely believe what you just wrote you are more gullible than you think. Your saying Sweden is ranked 2nd in the whole world for rapes simply because it gets reported more??? That’s just insane, the trend started as soon as you opened your door to a specie that openly tell you, raping non veiled woman is allowed in their religion. As a Swede maybe you have been brainwashed to hate your culture, (along with germany) but the rest of Europe, even your neighbours Denmark and Finland, do not think like you, and do not want to see… Read more »

Racal
Racal
8 years ago

@jr esc nl: I am not “acting like there are no refugees”, I am giving you the actual figures coming from both Amnesty International and the HCR of the United Nations: 140.000 refugees for the whole EU (515 million citizens) is 1 refugee per 3.700 people on average. The Netherlands have been asked to welcome around 9.000 refugees, which makes it one refugee per 1.900 Dutch people. If this is an invasion, it’s a pretty weak one… Besides, what is that map even about? @Mario: The only truth here is that there is absolutely no evidence for what you are… Read more »

Mario
Mario
8 years ago

@ You are just confused here mixing up your own (true though) facts with ours.. They have caused havoc really mess in our islands here in Greece…And we had seen this every day on the news with the residents there to suffer & be fed up with them…Any Greek user here will just agree with me.. And excuse me…Except of these refugeees there are others that are not syrians but just immigrants from Iran,Iraq,Afganistan & Pakistan that flee & take advantage of this so to enter in Europe…Many of them are just criminal thugs that will cause any kind of… Read more »

jr esc nl
jr esc nl
8 years ago

you can act like we almost have no refugees in europe racal but this is a map of all the asylums in the netherlands http://twitter.com/RTLNieuwsFacts/status/649494944000933888/photo/1 we also have a very high population density in the netherlands and about 17 million people…

Rayman
Rayman
8 years ago

Oh my god, the comments here below… Where do I even start? The hostility you show against the refugees from the Middle East is terrifying. Painting them as a trojan horse invading Europe amongst other things reminds me a lot of the rhetoric used against the jews here in Europe in the 30s. Is that what’s intended? As a Swede I must tell you guys that the high numbers of rape are because the amount of reported rapes has been increased, not necessarly the amount of actual rapes. All over the world people has for a long time been ashamed… Read more »

Racal
Racal
8 years ago

You people are disgusting, and maybe you should read a little bit before throwing all your hatred and bigotry in the comments section… In absolute numbers of refugees welcomed, the top 4 is made of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon (a country of 5 million people that currently hosts 2.5 million refugees, 50% of their population!). There is no single European country in the top 10 countries. If you take a look at the same ranking, but in terms of refugees per citizens of the host countries, there is only one European country in the top 10: Sweden, in 9th… Read more »

Racal
Racal
8 years ago

You people are disgusting, and maybe you should read a little bit before throwing all your hatred and bigotry in the comments section… In absolute numbers of refugees welcomed, the top 4 is made of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon (a country of 5 million people that currently hosts 2.5 million refugees, 50% of their population!). There is no single European country in the top 10 countries. If you take a look at the same ranking, but in terms of refugees per citizens of the host countries, there is only one European country in the top 10: Sweden, in 9th… Read more »

Stupid Max
Stupid Max
8 years ago

Are you thrown your opinion based on WordPress site? really? your way of thinking must be shallow…

Oh don’t forget about WW I and WW II, is that Muslim that you’d blame to? hahaha

Mario Esc~Fan
Mario Esc~Fan
8 years ago

Thank you Max for this link..
Yeah indeed,i agree…At first when they arrive in our countries they be careful with being quiet & then as the time passes by they start revealing their true colours & have a behaviour of thug with being troublemakers..
The syndrome of the *Troyan Horse* indeed..

Mario Esc-Fan
Mario Esc-Fan
8 years ago

I recall that CAROLA was called homophobic for her beliefs decades ago… Well im sure that now she is 100% gay friendly.. { Its the same with having people calling Margaret Thatcher anti gay politician for her policies in the decade of 80s {when the whole world was anti gay & there was no politician on our side} when if she was on charge today she would be the most gay friendly politician & our #1 biggest ally…This anti gay attitude was not at all her own blame fault anyway as she was just following orders from her homophobic society…England… Read more »

Max
Max
8 years ago

Mario Sweden is now ranked 2nd in the world for rapes just behind Lesotho. The number of rapes has gone up 15 fold since they opened their doors to mass migrants. Being greek maybe you are aware of the story of the trojan horse. They come into Europe pretending to be innocent, (and to be fair some probably are) but then they grow and grow in number and then they strike. It’s an invasion!, they are using our political correctness, our tolerance and our democracy against us. They start off harmless and making up a relatively small part of the… Read more »

Mario Esc-Fan
Mario Esc-Fan
8 years ago

Well of course these refugees should be taken somewhere safe but it is really getting out of control.. Here in Greece havoc chaos mess has been created…We already have pandemonium from the tones of immigrants that pass our borders illegally for many years now.. We can not handle & face this problem.. Plus our rate of crime has been icreased dramatically with them…You read all the time about greeks civilians getting murdered by immigrants.. They have turned my country to a jungle.. I have been informed that this phenomenon is happening to Sweden as well..Although they do not have that… Read more »

Max
Max
8 years ago

@Jr esc nl

You are right, he had been living in a safe appartment in Bodrum for 3 months, but he decided he wanted more money so had to go to Europe to get it.

Also this whole article proves my point, it talks about Syrian refugees, but these men are IRANIAN!!!

Sweden, France and Germany are doomed to become Islamic republics, and have their cultures washed away!

davve
davve
8 years ago

Sweden is in chaos over all these bloody refugees… soon Sweden will be the islamic state of Sweden and allah….

jr esc nl
jr esc nl
8 years ago

Ok, it’s standing on theindependent.co.uk which i tought was a pretty big news site. But i guess you shouldn’t believe everything 🙂

Omg
Omg
8 years ago

I heard that Jade Ewen is returning to EurovisioN!

Chris
Chris
8 years ago

I correct you, you are wrong

jr esc nl
jr esc nl
8 years ago

Correct me if i’m wrong but didn’t the father of toddler aylan live a save life in turkey?