Ter Apel, Netherlands, Aug 26 (AFP\/APP): Asylum seeker Lawrence resigned himself to another night sleeping outside near an overcrowded Dutch refugee centre, as aid groups warn of a humanitarian crisis at the facility where a three-month-old baby recently died.<\/p>\n
The Ter Apel centre is in crisis, hit not by soaring arrivals but a backlog of people waiting to be processed — plus severe staff shortages after the government scaled down capacity.<\/p>\n
And the centre faced huge scrutiny this week after a baby died inside the facility from unknown causes.<\/p>\n
The chaos is a disappointment for those seeking a better life like Nigerian-born Lawrence, who arrived 13 days ago by train.<\/p>\n
“I am still waiting to be processed — and no, I’m not doing fine,” the father-of-two told AFP, who left Nigeria to seek a better life for his family.<\/p>\n
“Conditions are terrible here. This is not what I expected — at least not in a civilised country like the Netherlands,” he said, not wanting to give his surname for safety reasons.<\/p>\n
Lawrence endured an arduous journey getting to the Netherlands from his home in the African country’s volatile southeastern region via Italy.<\/p>\n
Arriving at the country’s main asylum centre, he expected a quick process and a roof over his head while he awaited the government’s decision.<\/p>\n
Instead, he joined more than 700 other hopefuls who have been sleeping in front of the gates — many of them for weeks.<\/p>\n
Both the Red Cross and the Dutch arm of Doctors without Borders (MSF) warned Friday of a growing humanitarian crisis at the refugee centre, a short drive from the northern Dutch city of Groningen.<\/p>\n
“It’s clear, if you look around, that we have hundreds of people living here… in dismal conditions and in the open,” said Monique Nagelkerke, an emergency coordinator with MSF.<\/p>\n
“There still is no proper sanitation and there are all sorts of medical complaints,” she told AFP.<\/p>\n
“The system here is trying to cope, but they’re not coping and that’s why we are here to help.”<\/p>\n
– ‘Bunch of dogs’ –<\/p>\n
On Thursday MSF deployed to the Ter Apel centre — a first for the organisation that usually gives medical assistance to those in war zones.<\/p>\n
Nearby, MSF doctors were treating a number of patients at a “hospital on wheels” set up early Friday.<\/p>\n
Patients suffered ailments “you would expect of people who have been on the road for a long time,” Nagelkerke said.<\/p>\n
Many had “skin diseases because of poor hygiene, feet problems because people have walked a long way”.<\/p>\n
Both MSF and the Red Cross warned that the situation may deteriorate, especially with the end of summer approaching.<\/p>\n
“The situation is simply getting worse,” a Red Cross official told the ANP news agency.<\/p>\n
“People are cold at night, having to sleep on the ground. What happens when the weather changes?” the official said.<\/p>\n
AFP correspondents saw hundreds of men laying under makeshift tents, with a row of dirty toilets nearby, many littered with empty plastic bottles left by those attempting to wash themselves.<\/p>\n
A group of Turkish asylum seekers say some in their group have been sleeping in front of the centre for the past 11 days.<\/p>\n
“We are not criminals. I wonder if we’d be better treated if we were a bunch of dogs,” one 37-year-old asylum-seeker told AFP, asking not to be named.<\/p>\n
– Resistance –<\/p>\n
The government has launched an investigation into the baby’s death, which has thrown scrutiny on conditions at the centre.<\/p>\n
The Dutch refugee agency (COA) has said the current crisis is down to staff shortages after the government scaled down its capacity to handle asylum-seeker numbers, which took a downturn during the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
The government said Friday it plans to boost the homes available to asylum seekers by 20,000, to alleviate pressure on Ter Apel.<\/p>\n
But the Netherlands is already dealing with a housing shortage, and plans to give asylum seekers accommodation can run into fierce resistance.<\/p>\n
Residents of the eastern town of Albergen have been protesting for days against re-housing up to 300 asylum-seekers in a local hotel.<\/p>\n
And there are 16,000 processed asylum seekers desperately looking for places to stay, COA spokesman Leon Veldt told AFP.<\/p>\n
“There are too few reception centres and too few opportunities to move on to homes,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ter Apel, Netherlands, Aug 26 (AFP\/APP): Asylum seeker Lawrence resigned himself to another night sleeping outside near an overcrowded Dutch refugee centre, as aid groups warn of a humanitarian crisis at the facility where a three-month-old baby recently died. The Ter Apel centre is in […]<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-world-news"],"yoast_head":"\n