The Silja Europa, the ship on which asylum seekers are received, will remain in Velsen-Noord for another six weeks. From April 23, only about 220 people will be allowed on board, instead of the thousand of today. Velsen-North councilor Leo Aardenburg: “It’s all a play. That thing just stays there and Velsen-Noord is screwed up.”
This is the outcome of last night’s council meeting. The council’s plan to continue to receive more than 200 asylum seekers ‘with links to the region’ in the municipality, but on a smaller river cruise ship, must be implemented as soon as possible. The problem: the intended locations in IJmuiden or Velsen-Noord or in Zijkanaal C still have to be made suitable.
Only the school-going children, their families (about 170 people) and the ship’s inhabitants who are doing an internship in the region (about 50 people) are allowed to stay on the Silja Europa after April 23 and then be transferred to another ship. The rest of the thousand people must be accommodated elsewhere in the Netherlands.
Vulnerable
Aardenburg, council member for LGV and florist in the village, has yet to see it: “It is a game, a political game, that’s how I feel. They keep looking for locations, which turn out to be unsuitable and that is the VOB quay (where the ship is now lying, ed.) And so the ship just stays put. We are with LGV against a ship in Velsen-Noord or IJmuiden, those are all too vulnerable neighborhoods.”
The Silja Europa would remain in Velsen-Noord until March 1. To be able to conduct a survey about the future of the ship among the inhabitants of Velsen-Noord, that became April 16, even April 23, and now around June 4.