Some 200 asylum seekers in Zeist to spend winter in tents

About 200 asylum seekers currently living in tents on the grounds of Kamp Zeist will have to spend the winter there. The construction of an asylum seekers center on the site has been delayed due to a shortage of building materials, RTV Utrecht reports.

“Some extra provisions will be made to make sure the stay is as pleasant as possible,” a spokesperson for the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) said to the broadcaster. “Let’s hope for a mild winter.”

The location is currently an emergency shelter, which means it has very basic provisions. The COA planned to open the new asylum shelter at Kamp Zeist, with room for 400 people, in December. The people now living in tents on site could then move in, as well as about 200 other asylum seekers. Now the COA hopes to open the shelter in April or May next year.

That also means the COA has 200 fewer beds than expected for the winter. “We will miss those extra places in the near future. There is a huge shortage of places, so we will have to find another way to accommodate those people by redistribution in other locations in the country,” the spokesperson said.

The Netherlands’ shortage of asylum shelters became painfully visible over the summer when hundreds of people had to sleep outside the asylum registration center in Ter Apel for weeks. The situation got so bad that Doctors without Borders stepped in, the first time ever the aid organization intervened in the Netherlands.

People no longer sleep outside in Ter Apel, but the situation is still far from ideal. Unaccompanied children, for example, have been sleeping on the floor of the application center’s waiting rooms for weeks because there are no beds for them. Early this week, over 300 kids were currently staying in the shelter for unaccompanied children, which is built to house 55. State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum) pleaded with municipalities to create space for these children. Only one municipality agreed to help.

The court in The Hague recently ruled that the conditions in Dutch asylum shelters are well below European standards. The court ordered the State and COA to immediately stop accommodating vulnerable groups, including children, in emergency and crisis shelters. The government must also immediately ensure that all asylum seekers have access to the basic necessities - a bed, food and water, and sanitary facilities. The government appealed against the ruling.