Overview
- The day shelter opened Wednesday in a vacant DISA office next to the Ter Apel registration centre and is managed and prepared by the Red Cross.
- The facility provides basic services such as wifi, power, toilets, food and air conditioning and uses COA-issued dated wristbands to control access.
- The shelter can host about 80 to 120 people during the day and sends residents by bus each evening to the night reception currently located in Nieuwe Pekela.
- Authorities created the shelter after the Red Cross and VluchtelingenWerk stopped frontline work because of repeated incidents on the grass outside Ter Apel and the area was declared a security risk area allowing preventive searches.
- Local officials in Westerwolde warn the measure may be insufficient if arrivals rise and criticize the narrow use of state-owned property instead of a wider, nationwide distribution of reception places.