By RTL News··Amended:
RTL
An uninhabited emergency reception location for asylum seekers in the village of Ugchelen, near Apeldoorn, was damaged last night. This is an empty primary school. The police assume destruction. From Friday, asylum seekers would be accommodated for whom there is no longer a place in Ter Apel.
Local residents heard a loud bang just after 1 a.m., a press photographer reported. Images show that there are paving stones and shards of glass in the hall. According to Omroep Gelderland, a security guard was present in the building, he was not injured.
Unrest in the neighborhood
The building in the Gelderland village was designated as a new emergency shelter last week. In recent weeks, Zutphen has received those asylum seekers in a sports hall, but that reception will stop on Friday.
The mayor of Apeldoorn, Ton Heerts, announced that a maximum of one hundred asylum seekers can be accommodated in the empty primary school in Ugchelen until the end of the year. “We do what is necessary: give people a decent roof over their heads,” he said.
Omroep Gelderland reports that there was considerable unrest in Ugchelen about the reception. Angry local residents hung up banners.
Overcrowded Ter Apel
Ter Apel has room for two thousand asylum seekers, but it is often overcrowded. For every day that the asylum center in Ter Apel was too full, the COA had to pay a 15,000 euro fine to the municipality of Westerwolde, which includes Ter Apel, up to a maximum of 1.5 million. That amount was quickly reached.
If the registration center is too full, the COA sometimes decides that not all asylum seekers are allowed to enter. It is mainly people who are seen as less vulnerable by the COA, such as single men, who are refused entry. To prevent them from having to sleep on the grass, municipalities must step in.
In addition to Zutphen and, as of Friday, Apeldoorn, seven more municipalities have acutely accepted asylum seekers from Ter Apel. A tour by the ANP shows that almost two hundred municipalities are not immediately taking over asylum seekers from Ter Apel.