A 78-year-old British woman named Joyce Thomas is facing a difficult situation after being told by Swedish authorities that she must leave the country. She is a retired nurse who moved to Sweden 22 years ago with her husband, who passed away from cancer three years ago. Recently, the Swedish government informed her that she and her husband should have applied for a formal residence permit after Brexit, which is the process by which the United Kingdom left the European Union in 2020. Thomas has had several applications and appeals rejected, and she now has a final deadline to leave the country voluntarily. She described the situation as "absolute hell," saying she is struggling to sleep or eat and feels uncertain about what will happen each day. When the UK left the EU, British citizens lost their automatic right to live in other EU countries, including Sweden. To continue living there, they needed to apply for a residence permit under a special agreement that allowed them to do so until the end of 2021. Thomas and her late husband were unaware of this requirement until she tried to re-enter Sweden in 2023. Last month, Sweden's migration authority, Migrationsverket, told her she must leave by 8 September, and her lawyers are challenging the decision. Thomas is worried about leaving her son, grandchildren, friends, and her husband’s grave behind. “I’m tired, I really am tired and I’m not young anymore,” she said. “Where is the empathy?” According to data from Eurostat, a European statistics agency, around 2,490 British citizens were ordered to leave Sweden between 2021 and 2025. This number is nearly a third of the total number of British nationals ordered to leave the other 27 EU countries during the same period. Migrationsverket did not comment on Thomas’s case without her consent and did not provide specific numbers on how many British citizens are at risk of deportation. However, it was reported last week that 458 British citizens have been deported or removed from Sweden since Brexit. In a separate case, a family told the BBC about their father, who has dementia and is in full-time care in Sweden, being threatened with removal after living in the country for over two decades. Swedish Migration Minister Johan Forssell said the current rules were established by a previous government and that the current administration is reviewing the situation to see if there are ways to make the process easier for affected individuals. He emphasized that Sweden values its relationship with the UK and wants British citizens living and working in Sweden to be able to stay. The UK’s Foreign Office welcomed Sweden’s statement and said it is ready to support any efforts to address the issue.