Iraqi immigrants to Sweden have come in four distinct waves of migration. The first were around 8,000 Kurdish and Assyrian nationalists and Iraqi communists who were escaping the Baathist regime. This wave was between 1968–1978. The second wave of 10,000 people was between 1980 and 1988, mainly Kurds and Assyrians escaping
Al-Anfal Campaign and Iraqi men escaping forced conscription in the
Iran–Iraq War. The third wave was about 15,000 people, between 1991 and 1999, again mostly Kurdish and Assyrian people from Northern Iraq. Most of these came with families. The largest numbers, almost 30,000 people, of Iraqis in Sweden today have migrated as a consequence of the
Iraq War of 2003 to 2010. Most of them have been Sunni Arabs and Assyrian Christians.
Christian Iraqis, fearing persecution in their homeland, make up a large part of that influx after Iraq occupation in 2003.
[6] Sweden accepts more than half of all asylum applications from Iraqis in
Europe. In 2006, over 9,000 Iraqis fled their country and came to Sweden seeking shelter, a fourfold increase over 2005.
[7] In 2007, Sweden attempted to throttle the influx of Iraqi refugees by tightening the rules for asylum seekers,
[6] but in 2008 there were again record numbers of Iraqi immigrants, close to 12,000. In 2009, the number of immigrants fell again slightly, to 8,400.