The Red Cross will no longer deploy aid workers to the main asylum seeker registration in the Netherlands out of concern for their safety in the wake of multiple stabbings and other crimes in the area.
The Ter Apel asylum seeker registration and application centre, which serves as the principal venue for initiating asylum requests in the Netherlands, has become so dangerous that the Red Cross said “safety can no longer be guaranteed” for its employees seeking to provide aid to migrants at the location.
“This is a very drastic decision. We realise what this means for the people we help. But we have no other choice, because a small group of troublemakers is causing insecurity for both our aid workers and those seeking help. Therefore, a structural solution is now needed,” local Red Cross director Harm Goossens said.
The charity organisation said that in recent weeks, its workers, including emergency responders, had been “harassed by a small group of men” at the asylum reception centre. This made them feel that the site was unsafe and that the situation at Ter Apel could potentially get out of control.
Goossens said that there was a need for additional space to place the alleged asylum seekers, saying, “That is the only solution. We have been providing assistance for seven weeks now on the grounds in front of the registration centre. People are moving from place to place, spending hours on the grass, even in extreme weather conditions such as heat or heavy rain. This has to change.”
“I want to make an urgent appeal to all municipalities in the Netherlands: step forward and provide an emergency shelter location. Such a location offers breathing space for Ter Apel and ensures that people have a safe place during the day as well. We are talking about several dozen people per day, in a country with 18 million inhabitants,” he added.
According to the Telegraaf newspaper, the centre at Ter Apel has been so overcrowded since around mid-May that dozens of asylum seekers are forced to stay outside during the day and had previously relied on the Red Cross for food, water, and blankets.
An asylum seeker from Nigeria told the paper that he was unsure how people would survive without the aid organisation, but acknowledged that there were many problems with people at the centre.
“Every day there is a fight. People with severe mental problems are placed among ordinary people. When you say hello to someone, you don’t even know how they will react. And before you know it, there’s a fight,” he explained.
Indeed, just over the past week, there had been multiple stabbings at the asylum centre, including one before a planned visit from the Minister of Asylum Bart van den Brink, whose visit to the centre was delayed as a result.
A former security guard at the centre said that his stint working at Ter Apel changed his view on asylum seekers, saying that “the first week you work there, you feel sorry for the people walking around… After fourteen days, you start to scratch your head. And after about five or six weeks, you think: this doesn’t belong here.”
This sentiment was shared by Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders, who said that all Asylum Seekers’ Centres in the country should be shut down and deport all “asylum profiteers” back to their homelands. Wilders added that there should be “no whining about laws, treaties or judges, JUST DO IT! Necessity breaks the law!”
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