Between 250 and 300 asylum seekers had to spend the night from Saturday to Sunday outside the application center in Ter Apel. This is reported by the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA). According to the COA, it is exceptional that so many people have to sleep outside because of the crowds in Ter Apel.
Some asylum seekers could still be taken to emergency locations on Saturday evening, but new people kept coming. Some asylum seekers would also have chosen not to go to an emergency shelter for fear of missing their appointment with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) in Ter Apel. It is still unclear whether asylum seekers will have to sleep outside again in the night from Sunday to Monday.
The crowds in the application center in Ter Apel are not new; for months there has been a lack of places to sleep for asylum seekers, who first have to register in the application center before going to an asylum seekers center. Because the flow of permit holders in asylum seekers’ centers to homes is slow, asylum seekers have to stay longer in Ter Apel. Due to the resulting shortage of sleeping places, dozens of asylum seekers have been sleeping outside in recent weeks.
The Red Cross, among others, wants to prevent people from having to spend the next night outside again. According to RTV Noord emergency shelter locations in Zuidbroek and Stadskanaal are being prepared and the aid organization assumes that there are enough places to sleep.
To counteract the persistent crowds and the shortage of sleeping places, the government is looking for possibilities to open a second registration center in the Netherlands. At the beginning of July it was announced that this second location should be opened in the village of Bant, near the asylum seekers’ center in Luttelgeest in Flevoland. Up to three hundred reception places must be prepared in this second application centre.
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