Asylum seeker Lawrence resigned himself to another night sleeping outside near an overcrowded Dutch refugee centre, as aid groups warn of a humanitarian crisis at the facility where a three-month-old baby recently died.
The Ter Apel centre is in crisis, hit not by soaring arrivals but a backlog of people waiting to be processed — plus severe staff shortages after the government scaled down capacity.
And the centre faced huge scrutiny this week af-ter a baby died inside the facility from unknown causes.
The chaos is a disappointment for those seeking a better life like Nigerian-born Lawrence, who arrived 13 days ago by train.
“I am still waiting to be processed — and no, I’m not doing fine,” the father-of-two told AFP, who left Nigeria to seek a better life for his family.
“Conditions are terrible here. This is not what I expected — at least not in a civilised country like the Netherlands,” he said, not wanting to give his sur-name for safety reasons.
Lawrence endured an arduous journey getting to the Netherlands from his home in the African coun-try’s volatile southeastern region via Italy.
Arriving at the country’s main asylum centre, he expected a quick process and a roof over his head while he awaited the government’s decision.
Instead, he joined more than 700 other hopefuls who have been sleeping in front of the gates — many of them for weeks.
Both the Red Cross and the Dutch arm of Doc-tors Without Borders (MSF) warned Friday of a growing humanitarian crisis at the refugee centre, a short drive from the northern Dutch city of Gronin-gen.
“It’s clear, if you look around, that we have hun-dreds of people living here… in dismal conditions and in the open,” said Monique Nagelkerke, an emergency coordinator with MSF.
“There still is no proper sanitation and there are all sorts of medical complaints,” she told AFP.
“The system here is trying to cope, but they’re not coping and that’s why we are here to help.” – ‘Bunch of dogs’ – On Thursday MSF deployed to the Ter Apel centre — a first for the organisation that usually gives medical assistance to those in war zones.
Nearby, MSF doctors were treating a number of patients at a “hospital on wheels” set up early Friday. Patients suffered ailments “you would expect of people who have been on the road for a long time,” Nagelkerke said.
Many had “skin diseases because of poor hy-giene, feet problems because people have walked a long way”.
Both MSF and the Red Cross warned that the situation may deteriorate, especially with the end of summer approaching.
“The situation is simply getting worse,” a Red Cross official told the ANP news agency.—APP
