More than three hundred refugees who as of today are no longer being received in Ter Apel can go to reception locations in Amsterdam, Nijmegen and Oss.
The tents in Ter Apel, which served as emergency shelters, are being removed because the permit has expired. No more than 2000 people are allowed to stay in the application center in Ter Apel. Until tonight it was not yet known where the hundreds of refugees, for whom there was no place for them, would be staying.
The municipality of Nijmegen receives about a hundred asylum seekers in an emergency shelter. That happens in the Jan Massinkhal. In Amsterdam, people will at least be accommodated in a Holiday Inn hotel for the next few days, a municipal spokesperson said.
Mayor Hubert Bruls (Nijmegen) calls it “extremely tragic” that the reception of refugees in the Netherlands requires these kinds of acute emergency solutions. “Everyone has been able to see in recent days and weeks that the need in Ter Apel is more than great. I consider it our duty to contribute to a solution to this.”
It is not yet known how long the asylum seekers from Ter Apel can stay in the hall, but the emergency shelter – bunk beds in a sports hall – is in any case for the coming nights, the municipality of Nijmegen reports.
State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum) said earlier today that he cannot guarantee that he will find a place, but that appears to have been successful. To relieve the pressure on Ter Apel, he argues for new reception centers in the Netherlands. He is preparing legislation to achieve this and, if necessary, to force municipalities to receive asylum seekers.