About 250 people slept on the lawn at the registration center in Ter Apel last night, despite the evacuation yesterday of a number of people with buses. This is reported by a spokeswoman for the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA).
Just under four hundred people were able to leave the registration center last night to spend the night in Utrecht, Stadskanaal, Zuidbroek, Almere and Groningen. Some chose to stay. According to a spokesperson for Vluchtelingenwerk, many asylum seekers were “afraid to get on a bus” for fear that their asylum application would be processed later as a result.
The people who spent the night in Stadskanaal have now returned to Ter Apel, the COA spokeswoman said. The shelter in Zuidbroek was also for one night only. The spokeswoman could not yet say how the reception for those people will be arranged for next night.
Refugee Work in the Netherlands does not understand why the cry for hygiene from the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ) is only now coming. “I would have liked that a lot sooner,” says CEO Frank Candel in the NOS Radio 1 News.