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Dutch city sets up overflow facility for refugee influx
Sharon Dijksma, the Labour mayor of the central Dutch city acknowledged that conditions in the existing centre for asylum-seekers were "disastrous" and "overcrowded" in a Twitter post.
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In this Wednesday, April 6, 2016 photo, Afghan refugee Hamed Karmi, 27, plays keyboard next to his wife Farishta Morahami, 25, sitting on a bed inside their room at the former prison of De Koepel in Haarlem, Netherlands. The government has let Belgium and Norway put prisoners in its empty cells and now, amid the huge flow of migrants into Europe, several Dutch prisons have been temporarily pressed into service as asylum seeker centers. AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen
(AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
T
he Dutch city of Utrecht said Sunday it would create 200 places for asylum-seekers in a temporary refuge after rights groups condemned the lack of places available to non-Ukrainian refugees.
Sharon Dijksma, the Labour mayor of the central Dutch city acknowledged that conditions in the existing centre for asylum-seekers were "disastrous" and "overcrowded" in a Twitter post.
The overflow facility would be opened on Monday, she added. The city authorities have chosen a building formerly used as a casino, and it will stay open for four weeks.
At the existing Ter Apel centre up to 700 people have been forced to share a space that only has space for 275, rights groups said on Saturday, with tents set up outside to cater for the extra capacity.
"People are sometimes sleeping on chairs or even on the ground because the lack of beds," the Dutch Red Cross, UNICEF and the Dutch refugee agency, the COA, said in a joint statement.
Local officials had even said last week they were considering closing the centre, they said. That would have meant that refugees from Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria would end up on the street, they warned.
"The national government and municipalities must do everything possible to prevent this scenario," Dutch Red Cross director Marieke van Schaik said in a statement.
In recent weeks Dutch local authorities have set up tens of thousands of shelters, many of which are occupied by Ukrainians who have fled the Russian invasion of their country.
jcp/jj/har
© Agence France-Presse
