A few hundred people may be sleeping outside in Ter Apel asylum reception center

At the application center in Ter Apel, a few hundred people may have to sleep outside the coming night, the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) expects. "The situation is very worrying. For today there is little prospect of transfer from Ter Apel, neither regular nor to crisis emergency shelter," said a spokesperson.

According to the COA, it is "pretty tight," and a few hundred people will have to sleep on the lawn on Saturday if no shelter is arranged. "If you start the day with a few hundred people on a lawn and few of them can enter or go to another shelter, they will probably still be there tonight."

It is not yet clear whether there is any prospect of reception, the spokesperson said. "All kinds of parties are involved in this, such as the security regions and municipalities. We are continuously working very hard on it."

On Friday night, about 40 people slept outside. But they did so of their own choosing, not because there were no places available. "Not everyone makes use of the opportunity to go to the emergency shelter or to sleep on chairs in the application center. Some people feel better if they sleep outside."

The heat is "doable" in the application center, said the spokesperson. Canopies have already been erected during earlier warm days in July to create extra shady spots. Extra bottles of water and ice cream will also be handed out.

The consequences of the slow reception of asylum seekers have been most intense in the Groningen application center for months. It has been overcrowded for quite some time, so people sometimes have to sleep outside. Asylum seekers' centers no longer have spots and status holders cannot move to a home due to the overloaded housing market, among other things.

The number of status holders who have moved faster from an asylum seekers' center to, for example, a flex home or a converted office building, is far behind the numbers in the agreements made by the Cabinet, according to figures requested this week by the ANP from the COA. Only 52 percent of the agreed number has been achieved.