Over 18,000 people who came to Sweden during the height of the 2015 migrant crisis have been granted Swedish citizenship — and by extension EU citizenship — since being initially accepted for asylum status.

The Swedish migration board has revealed that a total of 18,420 people who came to the country in 2015 as asylum seekers are now Swedish citizens, granting full citizenship rights including the right to Free Movement around the EU — including Britain, until the end of the 2020 transition period — and the right to vote.

Around 60 per cent of them come from Syria, followed by Afghan nationals and so-called stateless individuals.

The vast majority of the cases, some 88 per cent, involved migrants claimed to be children, according to a report from news website Nyheter Idag — possibly due to the fact that children are able to receive citizenship quicker than adults, with a child needing to reside in the country only three years to be eligible for citizenship, or two years if they were previously stateless.

The residency requirements to apply for citizenship for adults are somewhat longer, at five years, but those with refugee status or those who were stateless beforehand have to wait for a shorter period of four years.

The statistics come a week after the migration board revealed that 60 per cent of the 163,000 asylum seekers who came to the country in 2015 had been granted permanent residency permits, a total of 98,000 people.

Mikael Ribbenvik, Director General of the Migration Board commented on the statistics, saying: “Since many people were granted residence permits during those years, this results in increases in applications for family reunification. And then, about five years later, there will also be an increase in the number of citizenship cases.”

Over the last decade, Sweden has granted around 1.2 million residency permits with family reunification making up around a quarter of all the permits granted, followed by asylum claims.

The country has seen a demographic shift as a result of mass migration, which now drives the country’s population growth.

The Scandinavian country’s total population is only around 10 million.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com