Asylum seekers had to sleep in the Ter Apel waiting room for the first time in a long time Domestic

Last night, 2,355 asylum seekers had shelter in the registration center at Ter Apel. The highest number since the judge ruled that no more than 2,000 people are allowed to stay overnight.

There was therefore not enough space to accommodate everyone. In the night from Wednesday to Thursday, even twenty people had to sleep on a mattress in a waiting room, a spokesperson for the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) confirms. The asylum seekers slept in a so-called portacabin, a kind of mobile construction hut.

These portacabins are actually intended as a space where people can wait during the day until they are given a shelter. However, it has been so busy in recent days that there were sometimes people staying there who had arrived late at night. They were then given a seat and could report to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) a few hours later.

But now, for the first time in months, people had to sleep in a waiting room again. “This is not the intention and shows how acute the shortage of places is,” says Van der Burg.

By the way, this is a different waiting area than the areas where asylum seekers slept last autumn. This concerned the waiting room of the IND and recreation rooms of the COA. After a visit to the asylum seekers’ center, the Justice and Security Inspectorate decided that these areas could no longer be used, partly because they were not fireproof.

The situation in asylum reception has been dire for months, and the shortage of places is increasing. Until July 1, 12,000 additional beds are needed to cope with the problems in shelters. Van der Burg asked municipalities to urgently make places available in the middle of this month. He also offered land from the government so that municipalities can set up pavilions there.

But this call has not yielded much yet. “I desperately need the municipalities and will continue to engage in discussions,” Van der Burg wrote to the House of Representatives.

The distribution law, which distributes asylum reception across the country, is already in force, but Van der Burg cannot yet force municipalities to provide these places.

Last February it was determined how many asylum seekers should be accommodated in each province. The municipalities in each of the twelve provinces have until November to draw up a plan for this task. Only when that fails does coercion come into play. That won’t be until the middle of next year at the earliest.