More boas for extra supervision around the overcrowded Ter Apel registration center

In association with

RTV North

NOS News•today, 10:06

The municipality of Westerwolde will receive eight additional boas for more supervision in Ter Apel, where the national registration center for asylum seekers is located. There is increasing nuisance in the village due to the overcrowded registration center.

Acting mayor Leendert Klaassen reports that some of the extra boas will start next week. According to RTV Noord, this concerns a so-called ‘flex pool’ led by the municipality of Groningen. This is a group of boas that can be deployed throughout the province from April 2. Their first workplace will therefore be Ter Apel.

No more than 2,000 people may stay in the registration center, the judge ruled earlier this year. However, more people regularly stay there, which means that the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) has to pay high fines.

According to the municipality, the pressure on the village is increasing due to the large numbers of asylum seekers. According to acting mayor Klaassen, the number of shopliftings has decreased, but the number of “other incidents” is increasing, he says. These are incidents in public spaces, but he does not want to explain what exactly that entails.

According to the municipality, the closure of the austere shelter for possible nuisance causes, the so-called process availability location (pbl), also contributes to the high number of incidents. The municipality hopes that the shelter can open again soon after some adjustments.

The civil guard in Ter Apel said at the end of February that there has been an increase in the number of asylum seekers sleeping outside in the village. Klaassen does not have exact figures on this, but wants the extra boas, which are also deployed in the evenings, to be able to enforce asylum seekers who spend the night outside.