Amsterdam will provide temporary accommodation for 230 additional refugees due to a critical shortage of beds at the national registration centre in Ter Apel, the local municipality announced on Thursday. The city will absorb the new arrivals into its existing reception centres across the capital for a fixed period of six months.
The move follows an urgent request from the minister for asylum and migration, Bart van den Brink. A spokesperson for the municipality confirmed that the transfer of asylum seekers from the northern village of Ter Apel to Amsterdam is already underway, providing immediate relief to the overcrowded registration hub. These 230 emergency placements come on top of the 4,781 shelter beds already operating in Amsterdam, meaning the city comfortably exceeds its statutory requirements under the national Spreidingswet framework.
Calls for humane and compassionate treatment
“Refugees deserve humane shelter, and it is up to the national government and all municipalities to provide it,” said Rutger Groot Wassink, the Amsterdam alderman for social affairs and refugees. He emphasized that for people who have already arrived in the Netherlands, the country has a collective duty to offer compassionate accommodation.
The emergency transfers coincide with reports on Thursday morning that nearly eighty spaces had temporarily opened up at the main Ter Apel facility in Groningen, though officials could not confirm if this was a direct result of Amsterdam’s intervention. Despite the slight drop in numbers, the Centraal Orgaan opvang asielzoekers (COA) stated on Thursday afternoon that the northern registration centre remains entirely full, meaning there are still not enough beds for everyone arriving today.
Because the facility has reached absolute capacity, the COA has restricted overnight stays exclusively to vulnerable individuals. This policy forced roughly fifty asylum seekers to spend Wednesday night in temporary emergency quarters in the nearby town of Stadskanaal.
@ anp | NEWS BRAINPORT
