About two hundred asylum seekers have to spend the night from Saturday to Sunday in the open air. Due to a lack of sleeping places, they remain behind on the outside area of the application center in Ter Apel in Groningen. The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA), which is responsible for the reception in the Netherlands, cannot provide shelter for the refugees. “The chance that we will find another location is virtually zero,” said a COA spokesperson.
Also read: Why do asylum seekers sleep on chairs in Ter Apel?
COA spent the entire day trying to accommodate the asylum seekers elsewhere, but talks with municipalities and security regions came to nothing. “It’s a sad situation,” said the spokesman about the group of men, women and children who spend the night under an awning outside the gates of the application center. They sleep under a blanket. It concerns a group of more than two hundred asylum seekers, possibly new people will join this evening.
According to the COA, there is no question of unwillingness on the part of municipalities, but there is simply no room. “The crisis emergency shelter and regular asylum seekers’ centers are completely full. There are currently simply more asylum seekers than reception places in the Netherlands.”
Two hundred asylum seekers a day
The organization will continue the search on Sunday. The 275 places of the application center in Ter Apel are also all occupied. About two hundred new asylum seekers arrive in the Netherlands every day. They report to Groningen to register, but stay there much longer than usual because there is hardly any space available in the regular centers.
The Netherlands has been struggling with a reception crisis for months, which goes hand in hand with the housing crisis. Because there are few houses available, refugees with a residence permit cannot ‘flow’ from the asylum seekers’ centres.
In recent months, it regularly happened that asylum seekers had to sleep outside in Groningen. Cabinet plans for a second registration center in Bant, a village in Flevoland, met with local resistance from the Noordoostpolder municipality. In order to relieve Ter Apel, the government is prepared to use coercive measures to realize the second registration center in Bant.