No bed for young Syrians

No bed. No shower. No education. Young people sleeping on chairs. Fighting, dealing, automutilation. Supervisors who lose the overview. Young people who do not know what to do with a microwave meal. Children who have hardly eaten for days.

Last week it became clear to the outside world under what circumstances some young people are staying in Ter Apel. This concerns the most vulnerable group of asylum seekers: they come alone and are younger than eighteen.

There is room for 55 of them in Ter Apel. The rule is that they only stay there for a few days, after which they are taken care of in foster families and in special reception locations, with guidance and without adult asylum seekers. In practice, however, the asylum system is so bogged down that these young people are stuck in Ter Apel for weeks. And there are more and more.

In April, 113 unaccompanied minors stayed in Ter Apel. In June there were 170. Last week 350. And then the beds were gone. Last week, the situation in the application center got so out of hand that minors spent nights in the waiting room of the IND immigration service. A place with 60 seats. Without guidance, without shower.

On Thursday, the Nidos Foundation announced that “the measure is full”. Nidos, who has custody of the young people and guides them in their asylum application, will be removing young people from Ter Apel from Monday. Fifty young people are taken to a location in Den Bosch. They can stay there for eight weeks. At least a hundred minors will be picked up later in the week. Nidos cannot yet say where those young people are going. The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA), which is responsible for the reception of young people, has been informed of the plans and has stated that the transfer will take place ‘in consultation’.

Protection

“It concerns a very vulnerable group, young refugees. This requires safety and protection,” said Nidos director Tanno Klijn. Nidos finds it “inexplicable that children have to sleep on a chair, for example, without a view of what will happen to them.” The young people receive guidance at their new accommodation, says Nidos, a shower and a place to eat together.

The number of unaccompanied minors coming to the Netherlands is increasing. Last year there were more than two thousand, a doubling compared to 2020. They were mainly boys, half came from Syria. They are often between twelve and eighteen years old, 200 children were younger than twelve. According to the IND, young people do not come directly from their country of origin, more and more often they lived in refugee camps in Greece, in Turkey for a longer period of time. Among the young people there is the impression that it is easier for them to obtain a residence permit in the Netherlands and to apply for family reunification more quickly than in other EU countries, according to the IND. The reception here would also be better. A smaller proportion of young people do not prefer the Netherlands themselves, but are brought here by smugglers.

In the search for a solution, COA also moved 125 unaccompanied minors to emergency reception locations in Doetinchem and Amsterdam last week. That never happened before. Nidos and Unicef ​​then increased the pressure: this is not a solution, they said. “Children traveling alone do not belong in these locations,” UNICEF wrote in a statement. The importance of children would have been lost sight of.

Nidos and the COA are insisting on a structural solution: both for asylum seekers who are awaiting their procedure, and for young people who have already received an asylum permit, but are waiting for a home. Nidos calculates that 350 homes are needed for these status holders. Nidos director Tanno Klijn: “With an average of one house per municipality for the reception of unaccompanied minors, every young person with a residence permit has a good, small-scale reception place for the coming months.” For example, ‘the flow from Ter Apel’ would start, and ‘the dragging with these children and young people will stop’.

Waiting room

The COA employees are still seeing the numbers of unaccompanied minors in Ter Apel increasing. In the night from Thursday to Friday, several young people were again forced to stay in the waiting room of the IND.

In addition to sleeping places, some asylum seekers in the area lack care. Since last week, a team of Doctors Without Borders has been providing medical and psychological assistance to asylum seekers who are staying in front of the application center gates.