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Groningen province will be able to accommodate almost 10,000 asylum seekers in the upcoming two years, and in addition to these places, there will be 278 flexible homes in the province.
According to the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA), agreements will be made for another 11 provinces, which also intend to be accommodation spots for asylum seekers. In total, 75,544 reception places are expected to be established in the Netherlands by January 1, 2024, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
There are 3,550 asylum seekers that reach regular centres in the province, in addition to 2,000 places in the application centre in Ter Apel. In addition, emergency reception locations can house 3,033 Ukrainian refugees, and 160 minor refugees have been admitted to the country and are settled in these places.
Furthermore, the last 260 refugees can be housed in the Groningen province and cannot stay in the Netherlands but have returned to their country of origin.
“If there is one region that has experienced the impact of the reception crisis last year up close, it is Groningen and, of course, specifically the municipality of Westerwolde. With this agreement, the government knows what it can expect from us in the next two years and that creates clarity and peace of mind. Hopefully, we can put the crisis behind us with this,” Mayor Koen Schuiling said in this regard.
State Secretary Van der Burg has also seen these agreements as a positive outcome and noted that Groningen is setting a good example.
The Netherlands has been dealing with accommodation shortages for some time now, and previously the Dutch court ruled that accommodation for asylum seekers, excluding Ukrainians, isn’t proper and that authorities should do something to offer equal access to the accommodation to all migrants.
However, the country is also dealing with increasing numbers of asylum seekers, which can be an issue to accommodate. The Immigration and Naturalisation Service revealed that a total of 2,991 asylum applications were filed in January of 2023.
Although the number of asylum applications experienced a 7.7 per cent decrease during the first month of the year, the requests have been piling up all throughout 2022, especially with incoming asylum seekers from Ukraine.
Syria and Turkey are the two main countries of origin for applicants, as 638 and 136 applications were submitted by these nationals, while Somalia and Yemen follow with 161 and 156 applications, respectively.
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