About fifty to sixty asylum seekers spent hours on Tuesday evening and night on a lawn near the gate of the registration center of the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) in Ter Apel, Groningen, because there was no reception place available for them. The group threatened to have to spend the night outside, also because transport could no longer be arranged to another location.
In order to be able to help them a little, COA employees brought blankets and food. “We have never experienced anything like this before,” said a spokesman, who speaks of a “low point”.
During the night, COA decided to accommodate the group in waiting areas in the application centre. There were no beds there, but they “at least had a roof over their heads.” A shelter will be sought elsewhere on Wednesday.
Also read: ‘Children in Ter Apel are neglected’
The situation in the Ter Apel application center has been critical for some time. The shelter has room for a maximum of two thousand refugees and the night shelter for no more than 275. But in recent months, hundreds of asylum seekers regularly had to be accommodated more than the capacity for, resulting in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. The reason for the overcrowding is, among other things, the lack of available shelter places elsewhere in the country. “The situation remains worrisome and requires upscaling,” said Mayor Jaap Velema van Westerwolde, which includes Ter Apel, on Tuesday evening. RTV North†
An RTV Noord journalist was in Ter Apel in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday: