The reception center in Ter Apel in Groningen had no beds available for more than 120 asylum seekers on Monday evening. They had to spend the night in a waiting room of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. A spokesperson for the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) has stated this, the ANP reports.
“Unfortunately, they have to sleep on a chair there tonight,” said the spokesperson.
In addition to the regular influx of asylum seekers, it was extra busy in Ter Apel on Monday because the emergency shelters in Breda and Nijmegen are closed. “This caused an extra influx of two hundred people,” said the spokesman.
Extra sleeping places
The reception center in Ter Apel, which has room for two thousand people, has been struggling with large crowds for some time. As a result, COA often has to find extra places to sleep at the last minute and asylum seekers sometimes sleep on chairs.
To relieve the burden on the reception center in Ter Apel, the 25 security regions in the Netherlands must realize 150 reception places per region from mid-week.