Refugees Ter Apel have to hand in tents and spend the night outside | Inland

A spokeswoman for the municipality says that the tents cause problems for (fire) safety and hygiene, among other things. “We don’t know what’s going on in the tents,” she says. “We really appreciate what these entrepreneurs have done, but it does not offer the solution and does not make the work here any easier.”

After a crowdfunding campaign, local entrepreneurs had collected 12,500 euros. Towing tents were bought from this, which were distributed on Monday evening to asylum seekers for whom there was no place in the center. Initiator Willem Straat explained that he wanted to send out a signal: ,,People should not sleep outside. We don’t get involved in politics, but we don’t think you can do this.”

On Tuesday it was restless at the registration center for a while, the spokeswoman confirms reporting from RTV Noord and online video images. ,,That has been the case for a long time and is because too many people are sitting in front of the gate here” According to her, peace returned in the evening, and people are asked to hand in the tents. These are returned to the Groningen entrepreneurs via the municipality.

A spokeswoman for the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) said earlier last night that about three hundred people are staying on the lawn near the center. The municipal spokeswoman says that an emergency shelter has been found for sixty vulnerable people where they can spend the night. The rest had to spend the night in the open air.

In the previous nights, asylum seekers also slept outside. The Groningen application center has been too full for months, which means that people sometimes have to spend the night outside. This is the result of the halted flow of asylum seekers. Asylum seekers’ centers no longer have a place and status holders cannot move on to a house due to, among other things, the overheated housing market.