The municipality of Amsterdam announced on Tuesday the temporary accommodation of at least a thousand asylum seekers on a cruise ship to relieve an overcrowded refugee reception center, the scene of a “worrying humanitarian situation.”
Amsterdam will host between 1,000 and 1,500 refugees on the ship from October 1 for at least six months to resolve the “asylum chain crisis” in the Netherlands, the municipality said in a statement.
“With the cruise in Amsterdam, we are taking another step together to solve the crisis in the asylum chain,” Secretary of State for Justice and Security Eric van der Burg was quoted as saying in the press release.
“Rationalization of the asylum chain”
The reception of refugees on the ship, financed by the government, should make it possible to “fluidize the blocked asylum chain and contribute to resolving the worrying humanitarian situation in Ter Apel”, stressed the Amsterdam City Council.
The Red Cross and the Dutch branch of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) recently warned of an impending humanitarian emergency at the Ter Apel reception center near Groningen (north), where hundreds of men had been sleeping, often for several weeks. , hoping to obtain refuge while his case is reviewed.
In this main reception center in the country, AFP correspondents had seen asylum seekers lying on the ground under makeshift tarpaulins on Friday, near a row of dirty portable toilets and without other equipment. Since then, hundreds of people have been taken to other parts of the country.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte admitted that there were “shameful scenes in the center” and that mistakes were made, and promised a “structural solution” to the problem.
Staff shortage
“The situation in Ter Apel is heartbreaking,” Rutger Groot Wassink, a councilor for Social Affairs and Refugees for the city of Amsterdam, was quoted as saying in the statement. “Now we must solve together the shortage of reception places so that the refugees can find a place,” he added, stressing that the reception on the cruise ship was a short-term solution.
The crisis was largely due to staff shortages after the government reduced its reception capacity during the pandemic.
Amsterdam becomes the second municipality in the country, after Velsen-Noord, to receive asylum seekers on a cruise ship, according to the Dutch press agency ANP.
Source: BFM TV
