A majority of the home-bound migrants have told immigration services they want to return to their families, but some expressed disappointment with life in Finland.

Tobias van Treeck, programme officer at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said: ‘Some say the conditions in Finland and the lengthy asylum process did not meet their expectations, or what they had been told by the people they paid for their travel.’

Nearly 80 percent of the migrants returning home are Iraqis.

Only 22 of 877 Syrians – whose country is engulfed in civil war – and 35 of the 5,214 Afghans who sought asylum in Finland last year have asked to return to their home country.

Alsaedi Hussein, buying a flight back to Baghdad at a small travel agency in Helsinki, said last week: ‘My baby boy is sick, I need to get back home.