The Red Cross will set up ten tents on the grounds of the application center in Ter Apel. A total of forty asylum seekers can spend the night there. The tents are placed at the request of the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA). Initially, the tents will remain in place for one night, the COA says: “After that we will see further.”
In Ter Apel, where asylum seekers have to register before they are taken to other asylum seekers’ centres, there has been a shortage of beds for a long time. Asylum seekers therefore regularly have to sleep on chairs. Assylum in other regions turns out not to be enough to solve the problems in Ter Apel.
Four asylum seekers can sleep per tent. The Red Cross also supplies stretchers that are placed in the tents. The tents are being set up because, in addition to all the beds, all 130 chairs are expected to be occupied tonight, the COA says. In addition, nearly a hundred asylum seekers were transferred to an emergency shelter in Stadskanaal.
It is the first time that Red Cross tents have been placed on the site of the application centre. The aid organization has previously placed tents outside the site on its own initiative. In the end, asylum seekers did not have to make use of this.
In March, COA had a large pavilion tent placed, which served as a dining room and recreation room. COA saw this as an emergency measure. The municipality of Westerwolde announced that the tent had been placed illegally, after which the COA informed him had to break off.
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