The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) has started dismantling the night shelter in Ter Apel. This will put an end to the shelter that had been unsafe, unsanitary and overcrowded in recent months.
Too many people regularly stayed in the shelter, so they slept close together and had little privacy. This led to frustration with fights, especially in the early days. There was also fear of a major corona outbreak in night shelters. Directors therefore called the situation a ‘crisis’.
The pavilion tents were built two years ago. They were to serve as overnight accommodation for asylum seekers who had just arrived and could no longer be registered and identified. The next day they were still given a regular asylum place at the COA shelter in Ter Apel. But at a certain point there were no more places available, causing an accumulation in the night shelters and asylum seekers had to sleep there for several nights.
The threat of things getting out of hand again has not gone away. “Sufficient reception places must be added elsewhere in the country so that we can adhere to the maximum permitted 2,000 asylum seekers,” says Engbers of the COA. Because actually all asylum seekers centers in the Netherlands are overcrowded, people can no longer be transferred from the only application center in the Netherlands, in Ter Apel. A problem that has been going on for years, but has become more visible and acute in recent months.
About 150 asylum seekers leave the overcrowded reception center in Ter Apel for Alkmaar. There they can be cared for in the Sportpaleis for a week. This has been announced by the municipality of Alkmaar and the North Holland North Safety Region.
The Sportpaleis Alkmaar is now in use as a so-called transfer location for Ukrainians, who can receive first reception there for a short time. There are 200 places in the Sportpaleis.
The first fifty asylum seekers will go from Ter Apel to Alkmaar today. On Thursdays and Fridays equally large groups depart.
Refugees from Ter Apel can be housed in Oss for a year and a half. Mayor Buijs-Glaudemans announced this today. Yesterday Oss announced that it would take over asylum seekers from the overcrowded asylum seekers’ center in Ter Apel. Nijmegen and Amsterdam also reported to relieve the asylum seekers’ center.
The places to be released in Oss were originally reserved for Ukrainians. Ukrainian refugees have already been taken in, and they will remain. Last night, groups of Syrians and Eritreans were added, and the rest were people from Afghanistan and Indonesia, among others. They were first given food and drink on arrival, because they had not had that all day because of Ramadan.