The municipality of Roosendaal has itself ensured that fifty asylum seekers from Ter Apel can be accommodated since Wednesday evening. A bus was arranged at the initiative of mayor Han van Midden, after it became clear that the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers was unable to do so. Van Midden: “We have enough buses.”
A shortage of buses meant that the refugees were initially unable to make the journey from the application center in Ter Apel to West Brabant, it was announced at the beginning of the evening on Wednesday. That is why the municipality of Roosendaal itself hastily rented a bus to pick up the group.
‘The location was all set’
“We had a location completely ready on Wednesday. We worked very hard here last week,” Van Midden reported on Thursday morning in the Omroep Brabant radio program Wakker! “The location was ready, the problem was the bus.”
“When Mayor Han van Midden heard that the refugees would come a day later, he found this unacceptable. If there is no bus from north to south, then the other way around,” said a spokesperson for the municipality of Roosendaal. “The bus left early in the evening, so it will be late.”
The refugees are staying in a company building on the Majoppeveld. It is an emergency shelter, for the time being for three months. “We will discuss a longer reception period with COA,” says the spokesperson.
Buses busy
The shelter in the Groningen village is packed. According to the COA, every effort has therefore been made to find fast transport for the group of asylum seekers who can come to Roosendaal. Due to problems on the track in the north of the Netherlands, extra buses were already in use. There were also many buses on the way with school trips, the COA was told.
It looked as if the asylum seekers had to spend the night on a chair in the waiting room of the Immigration and Naturalization Service IND in Ter Apel. “This is absolutely not what we want, but there is currently no other solution,” said the spokesman for COA on Wednesday evening.
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