He closely follows the war news from Ukraine, 19-year-old Afghan refugee Qader Hotak. From the hangar of the emergency shelter for refugees near Enschede. together with his compatriots. And especially the reporting about new refugee flows to the Netherlands. That would mean even longer waiting times for him and his family, his parents and five children. And even less chance of getting out of here.
Qader is one of the 2,500 Afghans who were evacuated from Kabul last August after the Taliban took power. With the promise that they would be helped quickly. The residence papers have now been arranged, but there is no prospect of a place in an asylum center, let alone a home of your own. Hotak and his family have had to make do with one room, separated by thin walls, for six months. Among more than four hundred other refugees. First in the rejected emergency shelter near Nijmegen, since the beginning of this year at the former Twente airport near Enschede.
On Friday, the UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, said millions of Ukrainians were displaced. Initially to the neighboring countries, but possibly also to Western Europe and the Netherlands. The cabinet takes this into account. On Thursday, Prime Minister Rutte said that “within all European agreements” will be looked at how a possible flow to the Netherlands will be dealt with. On Monday he said that the Netherlands must be “prepared” for refugees from Ukraine.
State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum and Migration, VVD) promised Friday after the weekly Council of Ministers that the cabinet would provide temporary housing, outside the existing asylum centers.
Ukrainian refugees have a different status than Syrian refugees, for example, Van der Burg emphasized on Friday. Ukrainians are allowed to stay in the Netherlands for a maximum of ninety days and the Netherlands will treat this leniently.
On Sunday, the first fifty Ukrainians reported to Ter Apel reception center. Ukraine still has the status of a ‘safe country’, so Ukrainian refugees now hardly stand a chance in an asylum procedure. As soon as that formally changes, Ukrainians can also rely on asylum procedures. They do not have to worry about the duration of their right of residence for the time being, the state secretary said on Monday. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) will suspend decision-making on Ukrainian refugees for the next six months.
Scrubbing with human rights
The only question is where those Ukrainian asylum seekers should go. The Dutch reception centers cannot handle a new flow of refugees at all. According to mayor Roelof Bleker van Enschede, the emergency shelter at Twente airport is now so full that it is “scrubbing with human rights”. In addition, the shelter (five hundred beds) will close in June. According to Bleker, that was agreed last year with former State Secretary Broekers-Knol and Enschede, the new State Secretary Van der Burg will keep to that agreement. Then Hotak and his family have to move again. For the third time since their evacuation.
According to Bleker, the emergency shelter in those hangars was never intended for refugees like Qader and his family: “Those ‘Kabul evacuees’ were promised special protection at the time. These are now people with a Dutch passport,” says Bleker. “But they still live here among asylum seekers and other status holders who are entitled to a home. Contrary to agreements made. The empire itself is at a crossroads.”
Precarious situation
That the Netherlands can no longer cope with the current refugee reception with the new influx was also apparent from a letter from State Secretary Van der Burg to provinces and municipalities earlier this month. The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) now houses 37,000 refugees, but will need 42,000 reception places in June. An “unexpected escalation of the precarious situation in Ukraine has not yet been taken into account”, COA warned at the time. If nothing is done, Van der Burg also emphasizes in his letter, “liveability and safety in the reception centers will be endangered”.
This is nothing new for Qader and his family. They first stayed, together with 450 underage refugees, in such an emergency shelter near Nijmegen, Heumersoord in Gelderland. National Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen and the chairman of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights ruled in a letter to then State Secretary Broekers-Knol ‘under the standard and unsuitable’ for the reception of refugees. Heumersoord closed, Qader and his family moved to Enschede. But it’s not much better there, he says.
It is no different in the emergency shelter in Leeuwarden, says Iranian refugee Mark (he only wants his first name in the newspaper). In Leeuwarden, about 570 refugees are staying in a large hall in a suburb behind the WTC building. There too is a mishmash of bunk beds with thin wooden partitions in between. Without daylight, especially many Syrian refugees and 180 minors. “There is no privacy here. Corona has wreaked havoc here, so we could hardly go outside,” says Mark “There is especially a lot of stress here. And fights among themselves. The children hear everything, they experience it all.”
Towing with refugees
Leeuwarden would also be temporary. Intended for new refugees to catch their breath and prepare for the first IND interrogations. Mark has been in Leeuwarden since November, he has had his first contact with the IND, after that he has heard nothing more. “Everyone is helpful here. But it would be temporary here. Now tensions are piling up for everyone. Physically I just feel weaker.”
Like Van der Burg, Broekers-Knol tried to avert an acute crisis in the refugee reception. Until now, however, there was hardly any enthusiasm among municipalities to make locations available. At the end of last year, the State Secretary came into conflict with a number of municipalities when she wanted to enforce reception with an administrative instruction. Because, in her opinion, the Netherlands is obliged to comply with international treaties on the humanitarian reception of refugees.
Van der Burg is not threatening, he has been trying to do it since he took office in January. So far with little result. A large number of municipalities are closing reception centers this year, such as Leeuwarden and Enschede, so that the shortage will only increase: rising to 8,000 reception places in June, according to the State Secretary in his letter.
The asylum reception is always tight and quickly overcrowded
Moreover, the flow of refugees with residence papers to regular homes is stagnating, despite a legal obligation for municipalities to arrange this. A third of those so-called status holders, such as Qader and his family in Enschede, are now forced to stay in reception centers, a total of 13,728 refugees. In order to catch up, municipalities and housing associations would have to help 2,288 refugees find a home every month, Van der Burg calculates in his letter. If that is not possible, according to his spokesperson, provinces can force municipalities. Because there is a legal obligation. Provinces can arrange this by providing housing themselves. “At the expense of the municipality,” said the spokesman.
There now seems to be enthusiasm for the reception of Ukrainian refugees. Van der Burg announced on Friday that municipalities have offered housing. The only question is for how long. And where Ukrainians should go for the duration of their asylum procedure. Because the shelter is full. According to his spokesperson, Van der Burg keeps emergency measures on hand in the most extreme case. This is possible with the Security Regions Act. Then temporary sports halls or other large locations can be claimed. In practice, that means dragging and moving refugees on a weekly basis, as former COA employees remember from 2015, when the refugee shelter also came to a standstill. The State Secretary may now, in the wake of the Ukrainian refugee flow, get municipalities to offer additional reception locations. And under the name Room For Ukraine, a group of volunteers also wants to arrange shelter. The question is whether this will be at the expense of Qader and his Afghan family.