The peace flag has been flying in front of the town hall of Aa en Hunze on Spiekersteeg in Gieten since late morning. “We have raised the flag because everyone is concerned about the situation; we as a municipality and our residents and we want to show that,” says mayor Anno Wietze Hiemstra. “We do that by hoisting this symbolic flag that carries the message ‘bring back peace’, as it were.”
In addition, Aa and Hunze are doing an act by transferring one euro for each resident to Giro 555 for aid to Ukraine; 25,000 euros in total. Hiemstra: “We do this as a token of compassion, as a heart under the belt.”
Just like in the whole of the Netherlands, all kinds of actions are started from residents of his municipality, says the mayor. “Many people also have questions. We have created a website for this. There is also an email address to facilitate these kinds of initiatives and to support people.”
Two thousand shelter places in Drenthe
If an appeal is made to the municipality for the reception of refugees, Aa en Hunze is certainly willing to arrange reception, says Hiemstra. It is now known that the cabinet has decided that all 25 security regions must arrange two thousand reception places; that means that Drenthe also has to accommodate two thousand.
“There are also residents who report to the municipality because they want to take in refugees, but it is not yet clear under what conditions this is possible. In principle, Ukrainians are allowed to live in the house with Dutch people, but we get questions about how things are done. For example, visas, insurance, reimbursements and things like that. We try to find answers to that and put them on the new website.”
‘Disastrous’
Hiemstra expects more clarity in the coming weeks. Hiemstra calls the war ‘disastrous’. “Russia is a superpower invading a much smaller country with much less resources and the rest of the world can’t help but watch. I think it’s great to see President Zelensky and the Ukrainian mayor do it. You can’t do that there much more than to have respect.”