Officers are at the overcrowded shelter in Groningen to monitor the situation. The quarreling parties have been separated, according to police. The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) does not provide any information, because the disturbances took place outside the fences.
An ANP photographer on the spot saw that a group of more than a hundred asylum seekers came to talk to and argued with a group of about ten other people. They would have stolen things from them. Then bags and beds flew through the air.
It has been restless at Ter Apel for months. This is because the entire asylum chain is hidden. Status holders, who are allowed to stay in the Netherlands, cannot get a house and are therefore forced to continue living in an asylum seekers’ center. As a result, there is no place for new asylum seekers. Crisis emergency shelter locations also do not solve the shortages. As a result, people in Ter Apel are forced to sleep in the open air. Several dozen asylum seekers have therefore taken action in recent days. Until Sunday evening they lay at the gates of the site, refusing food and drink, and refusing to lie down in makeshift tents.
At the overcrowded application center in Ter Apel, the tension is to die for.
photo ANP/hh