Autumn peak in asylum applications causes reception problems (again), all waiting rooms full | Domestic

The reception crisis has been going on in the Netherlands for two years. There is a structural shortage of municipalities that want a long-term shelter (azc) on their territory, as a result of which the shelter organization COA has to open one temporary emergency shelter after another. Of the 57,000 asylum seekers received in the Netherlands, 26,000 are staying in a form of emergency shelter. Sometimes hotels, but more often large halls with bunk beds or cabins on cruise ships.

In recent weeks, the number of asylum seekers reporting to the Netherlands has increased. In May there were about eight hundred every week, but the number has now been at or above a thousand for weeks. Last week there were twelve hundred. “We now have an autumn peak,” confirms a spokesperson for the COA shelter organization. This peak occurs every year: the weather conditions are good in the summer, which means more asylum seekers come to Europe. But because there is already a shortage of shelter places, the peak immediately causes problems.

On Wednesday evening, children’s rights organization Unicef ​​sounded the alarm because there was an acute shortage of beds in Ter Apel for minor, unaccompanied asylum seekers (amvs). State Secretary Van der Burg called the number of minors arriving in Ter Apel ‘extremely high’ on Wednesday. That trend has been going on for some time. There are now four thousand unaccompanied minors in asylum reception, three times more than in 2021. More minors are reporting to Ter Apel every day. It was expected that many young people would come, but COA is now investigating why there are still more.

The reception organization has been asking municipalities for months for homes in which the unaccompanied minors (after they have received a residence permit) can be accommodated in small groups. “But those homes are not coming,” says a spokeswoman. As a result, young people stay longer in Ter Apel and other large reception locations. “The situation is becoming increasingly dire.”

This also applies to the reception of adult asylum seekers. Because the Ter Apel registration center has been systematically (almost) full for two years, so-called waiting rooms have been created where asylum seekers stay for a few days before they go to Ter Apel to be registered and identified for the Aliens Police. These waiting rooms should prevent people from having to sleep outside on the grass in front of Ter Apel again, just like last summer. Earlier this summer, a waiting room for five hundred people opened in the Expo Hall in Assen. “It is full,” says a COA spokesperson. A new waiting room in an office building in Amsterdam South-East, which opened earlier this week, is also almost full. “There are three hundred places, two hundred people are now staying there and there will be more.”

An additional problem is that the Expo Hall in Assen will no longer be available as a reception location after October 1. However, a new, large emergency shelter will be available on the festival site in Biddinghuizen in October.