Last night hundreds of asylum seekers slept on chairs and stretchers in the application center in Ter Apel. That is what sources say to Nieuwsuur.
State Secretary Broekers-Knol of Justice confirms that there are such problems, but does not want to mention numbers. “Suddenly there is a huge crowd, but the exact number does not matter,” she tells Nieuwsuur.
Asylum seekers are registered for the first time in Ter Apel. People who are not yet registered at the end of the day end up in night shelters. It was so full last night that people couldn’t get a bed.
According to the outgoing State Secretary, it is not the case that the system has stalled. “There may be a spike at some point and that’s the issue at the moment.”
To the ground
Broekers-Knol emphasizes that 11,000 so-called status holders are still in asylum seekers’ centers, when they should have left there by now. “That makes it difficult to accommodate new people.”
It is not the first time that such problems have occurred in the Groningen application centre. More than a year ago, asylum seekers sometimes had to sleep on the floor in temporary pavilions. There were then extra beds put down.
There is suddenly a huge crowd, says Broekers-Knol:
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