Overview
- Pekela confirmed on Monday, June 29 that the temporary night shelter will open on Friday, July 3 and run until at latest Thursday, October 1 to relieve Ter Apel.
- Each night buses will bring asylum seekers from the Ter Apel arrival centre to a building on the Holland Marsh site in Nieuwe Pekela and return them the next morning.
- The location will be used only for sleeping and eating, will be empty by day except for staff, and can be scaled to about 80 people at peak.
- The Centraal Orgaan opvang asielzoekers asked multiple municipalities for help after Ter Apel regularly exceeded its roughly 2,000-person capacity and left people sleeping outside.
- Residents near the site have been notified and an information meeting was scheduled, and the short-term move highlights ongoing national pressure on reception capacity that may require broader solutions.