Despite signals that the asylum seekers’ center in Den Bosch would be stormed by rioters on Saturday evening, the open day went very well during the day. “We have had a record number of visitors,” says spokesperson Timo Waarsenburg of the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA). The COA did not express the residents that there was a threat to the head of the residents. “They knew it.”
Last week plans were forged in a WhatsApp group to collect at the provincial government at the provincial government on Saturday evening and then continue to the asylum seekers’ center. There was talk about storming the reception center.
No confrontation
The COA had also taken care of those signals and informed the police. This led to a massive police deployment on Saturday evening around this AZC. The ME was also present. In the end, a confrontation was not forthcoming and the forty attendees dripped again. No one has been arrested.
Earlier in the day there was little to notice at the Bossche AZC of the tension that hung in the air. “We have received a record number of visitors,” says Coa spokesman Timo Waarsenburg proudly. “Where in the past the Bossche AZC attracted between 150 and two hundred visitors during an open day, there were now six hundred.” The COA spokesperson does not know why.
“For residents, such an open day is also a party,” Waarsenburg explains. “They get attention, are in the interest, get in touch with local residents and can tell their story.”
In sight
“That there was a threat of the residents later in the evening, we did not explicitly let us know. But they know about it and if they have to leave in the evening, for their work as a delivery person, for example, we say they have to look extra out.
The spokesperson did not know why the Bossche AZC came into the sights of action groups this weekend. “Nothing crazy happened. But it could just be something simple. For example, one of the organizers come from the Bosch area.”