Last night, 25 asylum seekers spent the night in the emergency shelter in Gieten, the Red Cross reports. That is fewer than the 43 people who found shelter in the De Goorns sports hall the night before. They were dropped off again in Ter Apel this morning.
The municipality of Aa en Hunze will continue to receive asylum seekers at night until at least next Monday. It is the second time in a short time that the sports hall in Gieten, with room for 150 asylum seekers, is temporarily used to relieve the pressure on the overcrowded registration center in Ter Apel. That decision was made following a request from asylum minister Bart van den Brink (CDA).
“He said: we are stuck,” Mayor of Aa and Hunze Anno Wietze Hiemstra said yesterday. “Then we looked with colleagues to see if we would succeed and that was the case. You can’t let those people sleep outside.”
Since May 20, Ter Apel has been struggling with such crowds around the registration center that the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) cannot offer space to everyone. Several municipalities, including Aa en Hunze and Borger-Odoorn, have since offered a helping hand. “And everything went well for us last time,” said Hiemstra. “But we continue to report that this is not a structural solution.”