In Berlicum, he has been protesting fiercely since last week against the arrival of an asylum seekers’ center. If that comes, René will get from Blaricum and Sabine Frunt 270 new neighbors. The intended site is almost in their backyard.
There are banners on the pasture on the Runweg, the intended place for the AZC. Last week a fire was started and pig legs were hung on a fence. So you can say that the plans, to say the least, bring a lot of trouble. But not everyone is so fierce.
Sabine also notices the latter. She lives right next to the pasture and is also not exactly for the plan. “More banners hang here every day,” she says. But according to her, there are also people who think differently and remove the banners every night. “A lot of action is being conducted. But I also notice that not everyone is against the plans, there is a lot of polarization in the village. I hold my heart if an AZC actually comes here, because there are a few so fierce.”
According to Sabine, the proponents are afraid of expressing their opinion: “Because they fear that they are confronted with violence.”
“I understand that people are angry, but there are limits.”
Laura has been living in the village for fifty years and is not happy with how things are going at the moment. “I also don’t like how the municipality introduced this plan. We are involved far too late. But I don’t approve of how people are being protested now.”
“I understand that people are angry, I am, but there are limits. You can’t say to your children:” Get the eggs out of the fridge and throw them against the windows if you don’t get your way, “the one with the biggest mouth always wins,” she refers to last Thursday’s protest when Demonstraten’s boxes in Sint-Michielszestel.
“It cannot be the intention that we scare each other.”
“During the information evening last Wednesday, I myself was rather shocked by the shouting and the scolding,” Laura continues. “You could hardly ask the alderman. And I hear from villagers that they find it difficult to say that they think differently. It cannot be the intention that we scare each other in the village?”
Sabine would rather see that a smaller group of asylum seekers get a place on the pasture. “Sixty people, for example. And if that turns out to be good, that number can always be scaled up. If we were well consulted, the situation would probably have looked very different,” she says.
Response COA
A spokesperson for the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) says that a smaller group of housing is hardly feasible because it is at the expense of the security and guidance of the people in the AZC. It would also not be financially possible to accommodate a smaller group.
René van Blaricum also lives next to the site and joins his neighbor. “Here it affects the Flora and Fauna. It is also decided without any form of consultation. We were not told this until last Wednesday. That feels like a robbery technique. My social heart of course says they should get a place, but this is not the way.”
