Organizations that help refugees have today offered about eighty to a hundred people shelter from rain and wind at the application center for asylum seekers in Ter Apel. This is what Roos Ykema of aid organization MiGreat says.
The people, including small children, were able to take shelter in some buses that had been placed there by the organizations.
Ykema does not know where the refugees came from, but they do know that they had a great need for shelter from heavy showers. “People are left to their own devices and can become hypothermic,” she warns. Later in the day, people were able to enter the application center, but there are no longer any refugees outside.
The People for People organization also placed a bus on site for help. This aid organization makes “a cry for help” to the government “because of the inhumane situation in Ter Apel and the harsh weather conditions”. People for People says they have found crying children “trembling with cold”. It has been busy at the registration center in Ter Apel lately. For the first time in ages, people slept outside again last Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) did not respond to the call to offer better shelter to people who are outside. He does say in a response “that we do our utmost every day to accommodate everyone, including today.” It is not clear whether placing the buses in violation of the emergency ordinance in force in the area. A spokesperson for the Groningen Security Region was not immediately available for comment.
Ykema says that in any case she has not yet been called to account about the aid action by enforcers.