The 284 residents of the asylum seekers’ center in Middelburg, where a large fire raged on Saturday, must stay elsewhere for at least a few weeks. A spokesperson for the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) confirmed this on Sunday NRC. The local fire brigade declared the AZC uninhabitable on Sunday. The asylum seekers are housed in several azcs in the country.
The COA expects that it will take at least a few weeks to possibly a few months before the center is habitable again. The residents are taken care of in azcs where there is space. It is still unclear which azcs are involved.
“They will be housed in tufts all over the country, in places where we have been able to free up beds,” says the COA spokesperson when asked. “It’s not like we can move them all together to another location. We just don’t have those. After all, due to the screaming shortage of reception places, it remains a complex jigsaw puzzle”.
On Saturday afternoon, two residents – two men aged 22 and 28 – of the reception center were arrested on suspicion of arson. The duo is currently in custody. The investigation into the circumstances surrounding the fire is ongoing, a police spokesperson said on Sunday NRC. On Sunday, police conducted a forensic examination at the scene of the fire.
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