Far above Sweden's Arctic Circle, two dozen refugees stepped off a night train onto a desolate, snow-covered platform, their Middle Eastern odyssey abruptly ending at a hotel touted as the world's most northerly ski resort.
It was Sweden's latest attempt to house a record influx of asylum seekers.
No one was here to greet them. Only a few swaying lights flickered on the otherwise empty platform as women fruitlessly wrapped hijabs around their faces to protect themselves from the mountain blizzard.
"Where are we? Is this the final destination?" said Alakozai Naimatullah, an Afghan who worked as a US military translator. He wore tennis shoes, buried in the snow.
His words went unanswered in the disorder of arrival. Their bare hands frozen, husbands, wives and children bent over to drag plastic bags filled with worldly possessions over a steep, snowy path to hotel lights a hundred metres below.
They joined around 600 refugees, mainly from Syria and Afghanistan, holed up for two months in Riksgransen. It is some 200km north of the Arctic Circle and a two-hour bus ride to the nearest town - if the road is not closed by snow.
It is an example of the extremes Sweden is going to in order to house some 160,000 refugees this year in a country of 10 million people. Shelters range from heated tents to adventure theme parks, straining resources.
Some refugees, only a hundred metres from ski slopes, still dream of Syrian beaches.
Wael al-Shater was a chef at a 60-table restaurant called Sky View in Homs, specialising in chicken. He had aspirations and applied to study as a chef in Cyprus, but never got a visa. He had friends in Dubai but didn't want to live outside Syria.
"Life was so easy. I made $1200 a month," al-Shater said. "It was so safe that my friends and I used to drive 60 kilometres to the beach just to have a coffee late at night at two in the morning and return home."
But war came. His work day was cut in half as fighting erupted in the streets, and his father died of a suspected heart attack during fighting in Homs.
Trauma and illness abound. Flu and chicken pox already spread through the hotel. But the most common ailment is insomnia, a sure sign, say nurses, of war trauma.
To make matters worse, few refugees venture outside, spending days in rooms. Many fear taking children out in such freezing temperatures, despite tourists spending thousands of dollars to visit a place famed for views of the northern lights.
There have been cases of bus loads of refugees arriving in the north overnight, having a glance at the surroundings and refusing to get off, insisting on returning to warmer regions.
Some return to southern Sweden while others, like most in Riksgransen, accept their lot.
Al-Shater still yearns for his homeland.
"There is no human being who does not dream about returning to his country," he said. "But when it comes to Syria, this is simply impossible. We are planning our future in Sweden."
