(Ter Apel) Nigerian asylum seeker Lawrence O. resigns himself to spending another night outside, in front of the entrance to the overcrowded refugee reception center in Ter Apel, in the north of the Netherlands, where according to MSF and the Red Cross the humanitarian situation is only getting worse.
Posted at 2:58 p.m.
Lawrence O., a computer programmer, arrived in the Netherlands thirteen days ago by train, after a journey of several years from his native region in south-eastern Nigeria via Italy.
Upon arrival at the asylum seekers centre, Lawrence hoped for quick formalities and perhaps a place to sleep, pending the decision of the Dutch authorities.
He found himself with more than 700 other migrants sleeping outside the centre’s doors, many of them for more than two weeks.
“I’m still waiting to be registered,” says the father of two children. “Conditions are terrible here. This is not what I expected, at least in a civilized country like the Netherlands,” he adds.
The Red Cross and the Dutch branch of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warned on Friday of the worsening humanitarian situation in the center of Ter Apel, located not far from the city of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands.
“If you look around you, we have hundreds of people living here… outside, in appalling conditions,” says Monique Nagelkerke, coordinator working with MSF.
There are still no decent sanitary facilities and there are all kinds of medical problems.
Monique Nagelkerke, coordinator working with MSF
On Thursday, MSF deployed to the center of Ter Apel, a first for the organization which usually provides medical aid in war zones.
MSF doctors set up a “hospital on wheels” on Friday morning where many patients were received. The latter present pathologies “that we expect to see in people who have spent a lot of time on the roads”, according to Mme Nagelkerke.
Many refugees have “skin diseases because of poor hygiene, foot problems because they have come a long way and many chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease”, she lists.
The situation is likely to get worse, warned MSF and the Red Cross.
“The situation is deteriorating,” said a Red Cross official.
“People, who have to sleep on the floor, are cold at night. What will happen when the weather changes” at the end of the summer?, the official worries.
AFP correspondents saw hundreds of men in makeshift tents, near dirty toilets and empty plastic bottles left behind by those who used them to bathe.
Turkish asylum seekers claiming to have slept outside the entrance to the center for eleven days.
“We are not criminals. I wonder if we wouldn’t be treated better if we were a bunch of dogs, ”exclaims a 37-year-old, who does not wish to be identified.
Death of a baby
The situation at Ter Apel sparked alarm on Wednesday after a three-month-old baby died of unidentified causes at a sports hall inside the centre. Authorities have opened an investigation.
The Dutch Refugee Agency (COA) has claimed that the current asylum seeker crisis is due to a lack of staff after the government reduced its reception capacities for refugees whose numbers had dropped during the pandemic. of coronavirus.
The Netherlands also faces a housing shortage, with some 16,000 asylum seekers whose formalities have been successful but have not been found, said COA spokesman Leon Veldt.
“To sum up, there are not enough reception centers and not enough possibilities to access housing,” he added in an email to AFP.
Plans to house asylum seekers elsewhere have failed.
Residents of the small town of Albergen (east) have been protesting for days against plans by the Dutch Refugee Agency to house up to 300 asylum seekers in a hotel.