During the night from Friday to Saturday, 1,935 asylum seekers slept in Ter Apel, news agency ANP reports based on figures from the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA). This means that the shelter organization complies for the first time with the ruling that the judge made last month. The COA was then given four weeks to reduce the number of asylum seekers staying overnight to less than two thousand.
During the nights of Wednesday to Thursday and Thursday to Friday, the registration center exceeded the imposed limit. For each day that this happens, COA must pay a fine of 15,000 euros to the municipality of Westerwolde, where Ter Apel is located. “I am very disappointed about that,” responded outgoing State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum, VVD) on Thursday, according to ANP. “You have to comply with the rulings of judges. So that didn’t work out.”
It is far from certain that the number of asylum seekers in Ter Apel will from now on remain below two thousand. Many reception places where Ter Apel can send asylum seekers are temporary and have expired, for example because events are held in the same place in the summer. For example, the 240 asylum seekers that the municipality of Dronten received at the beginning of this week must leave again on March 19, according to Van der Burg.
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