A group of about a hundred asylum seekers demonstrated this afternoon at the Expo Assen against the living conditions in emergency shelters and the sticky asylum procedure. They believe that the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) should do more to improve their situation and future prospects.
Dirty toilets, broken showers, poor air conditioning, no privacy on the dorm. The list of complaints from asylum seekers about the emergency shelter in the Expo is long. “The situation is deteriorating day by day. In the beginning it was okay here, but with the increasing number of refugees it is becoming more and more difficult to live here,” says Bashar Alkanawati.
Bashar is one of the five hundred temporary residents of the emergency shelter near the TT Circuit. The shelter, intended, among other things, to relieve Ter Apel, is designed for a short stay.
The four-bed dorms are separated by thin walls and have no ceiling. The food that the asylum seekers receive several times a day must be heated in the microwave.
However, some of Bashar’s co-residents have been waiting for months in the Expo for a continuation of their asylum procedure. Emergency care is not designed for that. “It’s just not hygienic inside. After I touch something, I always use hand gel with alcohol. Toilets and showers keep breaking. Sleeping is often very difficult because of the thin walls.”
Employees of Vluchtelingenwerk, who work in the Expo, confirm the picture that Bashar paints. Despite the aid organization saying that it has complained several times to the COA about the circumstances, according to Vluchtelingenwerk little has changed within the walls of the event hall.
“I find it incomprehensible that people are still here after almost a year,” says junior team leader Marian Visser, who regularly visits the Expo. “The emergency shelter is simply not designed for long-term stays. You notice that people’s moods are getting worse. If you’ve been here for months without news, people become afraid of being forgotten. The smile slowly disappears.”