Ten Syrian families are waiting to be interviewed by Norwegian authorities at the Norwegian embassy in Athens. The Norwegian government decided in the spring of 2020 to bring 50 Syrian refugees to Norway of the roughly 125 000 refugees waiting in refugee camps in Greece. While the children play and sleep, their parents sit with interpreters and representatives of the National Police Immigration Service, who assess their identities and their grounds for seeking asylum. The goal is to identify families who meet the criteria set by the Norwegian government. They are Kurds and Syrians. Construction workers, farmers, truck drivers, and teachers.

The ten families in Athens are the product of tough negotiations between the governing parties and are the outcome of months of political debate. But they are also the result of years of failed attempts to resolve a refugee crisis the EU has struggled with since 2015.

More than 4.1 million people have sought asylum in the EU since then. Yet the union has never agreed on a lasting, common system for distributing and returning asylum seekers. Instead, it clings to the Dublin Regulation, under which asylum seekers must apply in the first EU country they reach. As a result, the burden falls heaviest on countries at Europe’s external borders, such as Greece and Italy. The coronavirus pandemic made the situation far worse—so desperate that several refugee camps were set on fire.

For the ten families, their priorities are safety, schooling, and healthcare for their children. They have lived in overcrowded, unsafe camps on islands such as Lesbos and Samos and describe long stretches marked by poor hygiene, limited medical care, and a constant lack of safety. This is the story about the people behind the number 50 and their encounter with their new homes in Norway.