Local Interest Nieuw-Weerdinge fears a waterbed effect now that Qbuzz has canceled five stops of line 73 since Thursday. The safelanders who cause nuisance on the bus will soon be walking through the village, Wim Cotton fears.
,,We are completely done with it”, says Wim Katoen, chairman of Local Interest Nieuw-Weerdinge. The village is located below Ter Apel on the bus route to Emmen. He fully understands that Qbuzz has closed some of the stops for three weeks, he says. A group of safe people lives under and above the law and does not care about anything, he says. It’s no fun for the drivers and passengers of line 73, he says.
However, Katoen fears that the troublemakers will now walk to Emmen. “I already see more asylum seekers walking through the village,” he says. That in itself is not a bad thing, were it not for the fact that there are safelanders in between who also walk through gardens, touch car doors and intimidate villagers with cutting movements down their necks or by masturbating in front of windows.
“Girls and the elderly actually don’t dare to take the bus anymore,” says Katoen. “They (safelanders, ed.) Disrupt the entire village.” With the current measures, it is mopping with the tap open, says Katoen. “We are 24 hours a day nuisance.”
‘Make haste at PBL’
The chairman eagerly awaits the process availability location (PBL). There, safelanders are housed in a sober shelter. They must always be ready for their process discussions. Missing those conversations delays their asylum application, which means that they can stay longer in the Netherlands in the current system.
The PBL cannot be there soon enough, says Katoen. “The COA (Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers) must organize the PBL as quickly as possible. Rather today than tomorrow.”