Refugees at the asylum seeker center in Ter Apel. Image Harry Cock
More than 25 thousand people from Eritrea currently live in the Netherlands, many of whom fled the regime. In the years between 2014 and 2018, several thousand Eritreans applied for asylum every year. After the Syrian refugees, Eritrean refugees were the largest group of asylum seekers during that period. The number of refugees from Eritrea has been lower for a while, partly due to the corona years. Refugees from Turkey and Yemen are currently applying for asylum more often.
An earlier group of Eritreans came to the Netherlands in the 1980s and 1990s, when Eritrea fought against Ethiopia. They were largely supporters of what is now the ruling party PFDJ. The contrasts between the two groups of refugees are great, as was evident again on Saturday in The Hague, where riots broke out.
In the last two years, the number of asylum seekers from Eritrea has shown an upward trend again. In 2023, a total of 2,350 Eritreans applied for asylum. A large proportion of the refugees – more than a thousand – from Eritrea are minors. After Syrian children, Eritrean children were the largest group of underage asylum seekers last year.
A relatively large group of Eritreans who were granted asylum in 2014 are working. The Eritreans initially made a slow start: thirty months after the status was granted, only 5.9 percent had paid work. But after ninety months, 61.6 percent of Eritreans had a paid job. This means they are working more often than status holders from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Eritreans often do low-paid work and usually do not have a full working week. Partly because of this, children of Eritreans more often live in poverty, according to an overview study by Statistics Netherlands. Of children born in the Netherlands with (one or two) Eritrean parents, 40 percent live below the low-income limit. Only children of Syrian parents are even more likely to live in poverty. Eritrean children who were born abroad are slightly less likely to live in poverty. This is usually the other way around and children of foreign parents born in the Netherlands end up in better circumstances.
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2024-02-18 16:18:42
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