Red Cross sounds the alarm about asylum reception: ‘Inhumane situation threatens due to shortage of places’ | Asylum

It has been too busy in the asylum shelter for months, but the Red Cross now sees reason to sound the alarm. “Places are closing everywhere, and we see that almost no new places are opening,” said a spokesperson. And with the Easter weekend just around the corner, it is unlikely that any shelter locations will be opened in the short term.

Nevertheless, the Red Cross calls on municipalities to quickly open reception locations. Otherwise, asylum seekers risk not having a place to sleep “in the very short term”. The Red Cross believes it is an inhumane situation.

The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) has also been indicating for some time that the search for new reception places is proving difficult. At the same time, many temporary shelters are closing their doors again. Calls from outgoing State Secretary Eric van der Burg have so far received little response.

The spokesperson says that there are “significant concerns” at the aid organization. Two years ago they helped for some time by setting up tents at the registration center in Ter Apel. In the meantime, the Red Cross was always ready to help where necessary, but now they are extra ready.

Suzanne Segaar, head of National Aid at the Red Cross, says that the parties involved are doing “everything they can” to arrange sufficient shelter places every day. “But it remains a sticking plaster. We see how this situation is slowly exceeding any form of humane shelter. If this continues, the Red Cross will have to step in again.”

It has been far too busy in Ter Apel since the autumn. This is because the flow from the registration center is halted due to a shortage of reception places. There are therefore regularly more than two thousand refugees in Ter Apel and last autumn people even had to sleep in waiting rooms for nights.

The municipality of Westerwolde, which includes Ter Apel, tried to enforce in court that COA would again adhere to the maximum number of people. That worked for almost two weeks, but it has now been too full every day in Ter Apel for almost three weeks. This has already cost the COA more than 300,000 euros in penalty payments.

A COA spokesperson told ANP on Wednesday that the organization “has nowhere to go” because people keep coming, but no outflow is possible to other places because they simply aren’t there.

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