Kerkrade shoots to aid with temporary refugee shelter in offices

Kerkrade shoots to aid with temporary refugee shelter in offices

Starting Monday, May 23, the municipality of Kerkrade will receive 48 asylum seekers from the Ter Apel shelter for up to 9 days. Some vacant office spaces at Europaplein have been made available for this purpose. The central reception in Ter Apel is overcrowded and cannot offer the asylum seekers any sleeping places at the moment.

Asylum seekers arriving in the Netherlands must report to the central reception in Ter Apel. There they are registered. For some time now, so many people have been reporting to Ter Apel that the reception center cannot handle the influx. Therefore, the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) has asked municipalities to look for temporary accommodation.

Kerkrade is offering the office spaces to help with this problem. The location will be available for emergency shelter until May 31 at the latest. After that, the asylum seekers will move to a regular COA reception site. "It is inhumane to make people sleep on chairs or outside," said Alderman in charge Huub Wiermans. "Even if it is only short-term and small-scale, we see it as our human and social duty to help where we can."