Last year 360 asylum seekers, including 210 children, disappeared from asylum shelters in the Netherlands. That's a 20 percent increase compared to 2017, the Volkskrant reports based on figures from the central agency for the reception of asylum seekers COA.
The increase is even more striking, because the residents of the six locations that offer shelter to families who did not get asylum also decreased this past year, from 1,770 to 1,300, according to the newspaper.
The Rotterdam-Beverwaard asylum center will stop taking in asylum seekers from safe countries following a number of incidents involving such asylum seekers in the center, Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb wrote in a letter to the city council. This halt is being implemented in agreement with the COA, the central agency for the reception of refugees, RTL Nieuws reports.
Between April and August of this year, there were a total of 20 incidents in the asylum center, Aboutaleb wrote. "In the period from mid-August to the present, this number has increased to 69 incidents."
The number of reports of foreign men being forced into prostitution in the Netherlands doubled over the past year. The victims are often asylum seekers and refugees picked up by human traffickers, according to research by Radio Reporter, NPO Radio 1 reports.
Around a fifth of the Syrian asylum seekers who are proposed for asylum in the Netherlands through the so-called Turkey-deal, are rejected because of extremist sympathies or because their ideals are not in line with Dutch values, Paul van Musscher, national portfolio holder for foreign affairs and migration crime at the police, said to the Volkskrant.
The Dutch government is trying to find shelter for 25 Sint Maarten residents. They flew to the Netherlands and asked for help after Hurricane Irma destroyed their homes, RTL Nieuws reports.
Two residents of a villa district in Den Helder decided to stop plans for an asylum center housing 16 young asylum seekers on their street by buying the property involved themselves. The villa cost over 500 thousand euros, AD reports.
Problem causing asylum seekers who will be placed in a special shelter in Amsterdam from the fall, will not be allowed outside the shelter terrain after 10:00 p.m. at night. The COA announced this and other stricter measures for the special shelter at a residents meeting on Monday night, NU.nl reports.
Amsterdam agreed to open the Netherlands' first separate center for problem causing asylum seekers. The central organization for the reception of asylum seekers, COA, hopes to have this center open and ready for residents by the fall, the Amsterdam mayor and aldermen informed the city council by letter, AD reports.
The asylum centers in the Netherlands are increasingly empty, the central agency for the reception of asylum seekers COA said on Thursday. The COA is currently housing some 24 thousand people, while there is place for a total of 45 thousand people, AD reports.
There is a lively trade in stolen goods at the asylum center in Delfzijl, Dagblad van het Noorden reports based on its own research. Both the police and central agency for asylum reception in the Netherlands COA say there is no evidence of this.
According to th newspaper, asylum seekers from safe countries such as Morocco and Algeria often go out to commit robbery and then sell what they stole. The paper writes that it bought sports shoes for about 15 euros, an iPhone 6s for 60 euros and a bottle of Black Label Whiskey for 5 euros.
The LGBT Asylum Support is again calling on State Secretary Klaas Dijkhoff of Security and Justice for support in protecting LGBT asylum seekers. This follows a gay asylum seeker from Iran sustaining serious injuries after being stabbed by a group of other asylum seekers from North Africa. The police believe it was a drug related crime, but it was a hate crime, LGBT Asylum Support said in a press release.
Staff memebers working at asylum shelters feel unsafe due to the "antisocial and criminal behavior" of hopeless asylum seekers from North African countries. The situation has become untenable", the works council wrote in a letter to the management of the COA, AD reprots.
The COA is the central agency for the reception of asylum seekers in the Netherlands. AD has a copy of the letter sent to the management in its possession.
The central agency for the reception of asylum seekers COA is cutting 1,300 of its total 4 thousand jobs, the Ministry of Security and Justice announced on Monday. This mostly affects people who are working for the COA on a temporary contracts, NU.nl reports
The COA needs to cut jobs due to the decrease in the number of asylum seekers in the Netherlands. Over the past years the number of COA employees were increased to deal with an influx, but that is no longer necessary. The people who have to leave were already informed.
The police received 813 reports of serious incidents at asylum centers or emergency shelters for asylum seekers during the first half of this year. The incidents mostly involved theft, violence and sex crimes, State Secretary Klaas Dijkhoff of Security and Justice wrote to parliament on Monday
The plans for more than half of new asylum centers in the Netherlands may be cancelled, NOS reports after surveying the Dutch municipalities that had asylum centers planned. The reason for this is the massive decrease in the number of asylum seekers arriving in the Netherlands.
In a massive turnaround from the desperate search for asylum centers last year, the COA is now actually closing a number of emergency shelters. The biggest rush of asylum seekers seems to be over for now, COA chairman Gerard Bakker said
The VVD wants to double the current naturalization period for immigrants. That means that an immigrant would have to live in the Netherlands for 10 years, instead of the current five, before being granted a Dutch passport, VVD parliamentarian Malik Azmani said in an interview with Dutch newspaper Trouw on Thursday.
From next month almost all asylum centers in the Netherlands will have a counselor to help lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people living their. These counselors will start on August 1st, the central agency for the reception of asylum seekers COA said to the Volkskrant.
A 54-year-old woman from Meppel was killed in an accident involving a forklift on the road in front of the COA building in Ter Apel on Wednesday, the police said in a statement.
Amsterdam residents have mixed feelings about the municipality and COA's plan to turn the Bijlmerbajes prison complex into a temporary asylum center.
Many municipalities in the Netherlands spent way more on providing emergency shelter for asylum seekers than they received in compensation from the COA, the central agency for the reception of asylum seekers. Though a small number of municipalities actually managed to spend less than the compensation and have money left over, according to a study done by Reporter Radio
Two underage asylum seekers sustained stab wounds in a brawl in an asylum center in Goirle, Noord-Brabant on Thursday night. One of them was taken to hospital for treatment before being taken to the police station. The other was taken into custody immediately, according to the Tilburg police.
The National Committee for 4 and 5 May this year invited all asylum seekers to take part in Remembrance Day memorials and Liberation Day celebrations. For the first time the COA asked the Committee to involve asylum seekers in these two days, so that they can become used to Dutch traditions
Utrecht is the first city in the Netherlands to start integrating asylum seekers into society from their first day in the city. The city wants to put an end to the current practice of asylum applicants being moved about and integration starting late. "When you arrive in Utrecht, you stay in Utrecht", GroenLinks alderman Kees Diepeveen said to the Volkskrant. "This creates peace. For school-age children, being dragged around is very dramatic."
