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VEDEVÅG. Kerstin Larnesjö, 73, bought train tickets for refugees so they could leave Sweden.
Now she has been convicted of human trafficking.
– I did not think that the police would force an older aunt, he says.
One day in late summer this year, Kerstin Larnesjö received a surprising message. The police wanted her to call.
Thoughts raced through the retired teacher’s head as the signs passed. What could it be?
Hadn’t he done something illegal?
Photo: ANDREAS BARDELL / AFTONBLADET
Kerstin Larnesjö did not believe that the police could put energy into “a 73-year-old aunt”.
They told him that he had to report in person to the Lindesberg station in Västmanland. A short time later, she was sitting on a bench in a cold interrogation room.
– The German police have called him for questioning through us, said the policeman.
German colleagues had linked his bank card and email address to the train tickets, they told him. And now she was charged with human trafficking.
– It felt unreal. But I couldn’t imagine that I would be convicted, that the German police would not put energy into a 73-year-old aunt, he says.
New words bounce off the walls.
Ball. Bathtub. Family.
Kerstin Larnesjö has a language cafe for refugees inside the octagonal stone church in the town of Vedevåg. Eleven women and two men read the children’s book “Babar” together.
Photo: ANDREAS BARDELL / AFTONBLADET
Kerstin decided to invite asylum seekers to church.
Photo: ANDREAS BARDELL / AFTONBLADET
Children crawl among Lego in the hallway.
Photo: ANDREAS BARDELL / AFTONBLADET
In church they read “Babar” together.
The group in the church includes everything from illiterates to college graduates. All but one have received their third and final rejection.
Young children crawl down the aisle among the Lego blocks.
Here is despair and fear. But also something else. A fighting spirit, when the Swedish language was used word for word.
– They really want to learn, despite setbacks, says Kerstin Larnesjö.
Five years ago Kerstin Larnesjö read on a local Facebook group that a refugee accommodation would be opened in the neighboring town of Stråssa.
“Lock up your women,” he said in a comment.
He decided to go there and offer coffee.
– I met 36 asylum seekers who were afraid of the forest and wolves and wondering where all the people were.
Since then, she has been busy helping.
Two years ago, Afghan families with children in Stråssa began to be summoned for talks at the Swedish Migration Board. They had received their final rejections and were told that they must return within three weeks. The unrest spread through the town.
Photo: ANDREAS BARDELL / AFTONBLADET
Kestin got money from those families with children, then paid for her train tickets with her card.
It wasn’t long before the first family turned to Kerstin for help. They wanted to travel to France, where Afghans are much more likely to obtain a residence permit. At the same time, they lacked a bank card and a computer to buy tickets.
– They came with money in hand, so I booked tickets for them with my debit card, says Kerstin.
Soon he helped five families, all with young children, to leave Sweden. A total of 33 people.
For asylum seekers, it is illegal to cross the borders of the EU. But Kerstin thought she would have done the same for them.
– I have read your asylum investigations and listened to your stories. They have all been through hell.
One day in September this year, the verdict came in a registered letter from the district court in Flensburg, Germany.
By helping pay the fines, he had made the escape possible, the court reasoned. Kerstin Larnesjö was guilty of 33 human trafficking cases and was sentenced to pay the equivalent of 26,000 crowns in fines. If she did not pay within three weeks, she was sentenced to five months in prison.
Photo: ANDREAS BARDELL / AFTONBLADET
She was sentenced to pay a fine of SEK 26,000.
People in her neighborhood urged her to appeal, but then she risked having to pay court costs as well.
– I had no idea how I could pay. But I didn’t want to go to jail either.
The smell of coffee spreads through the church. The lesson is over and the coffee table is set. The flight from Sweden continues, five Afghan families with children have left their homes in Vedevåg for other European countries since last winter, without Kerstin’s help.
Those that remain bite themselves.
People like Fatemeh, who fled to Sweden so her daughters wouldn’t have to marry and now they don’t answer every time the biggest question “mother, why doesn’t Sweden want us to stay?”
Photo: ANDREAS BARDELL / AFTONBLADET
Kerstin eventually received help from volunteers and refugees to pay her fines.
Photo: ANDREAS BARDELL / AFTONBLADET
He doesn’t regret what he did, but he wouldn’t have dared to do it again.
Or Ali, who has applied for an exemption to execution more than twenty times and who thinks every day and night how he can show the Swedish Immigration Board that he has truly become a Christian.
In the end, Kerstin did not have to pay the fine herself. Other volunteers and asylum seekers muttered about what they could do.
– A Syrian even wanted to sell his car to help me, but there I drew the line, says Kerstin.
This week, he deposited the full amount, within the allotted time.
– I do not regret anything. But today I had not dared to do it, he says.
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