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No end to stream of refugees entering Brussels
The federal government has again increased the number of places available for refugees who have not yet been processed by the Office for Foreigners, as the stream of asylum-seekers arriving in Belgium continues unabated.
After a brief respite, the numbers of refugees arriving this week rose again, leaving the Office for Foreigners unable to cope with the daily demand. Those who cannot be processed are sent away with an appointment for another day, and as the numbers grow, those appointments are scheduled further and further in the future.
Those who have not been processed cannot be assigned accommodation by Fedasil, the government’s asylum agency. In the summer, that led to the tent camp set up by the Red Cross in Maximilian Park in Brussels. As autumn approached, the refugees were moved indoors, to the WTC-III office building near North Station. The 500 places originally planned became 1,000.
When the numbers dipped, 500 of those places were taken over by post-processed asylum-seekers, according to migration minister Theo Francken. Now that pre-processing numbers are rising again, they will revert to their original purpose.
Francken has asked municipal authorities to make a special effort to take in refugees, while awaiting a dispersal plan that he said should be ready by the first of the year.
The volunteer group that ran the tent camp for the Red Cross, meanwhile, has warned of large numbers of unprocessed refugees forced to sleep rough in the coming days. Some have been given appointments 10 days in the future, and the available places are limited.
Photo: Thierry Roge/BELGA
Comments
No end in sight anywhere in Europe. Not a single measure to halt the massive illegal entry into the EU is even being officially discussed afaik. When the EC does bother to meet, nothing is accomplished. It seems to have adopted a 'just roll over and play dead' approach. Meanwhile there isn't a nook or cranny anywhere in the EU that isn't being affected in one way or another. The EU and its EC are finally up against a momentous crisis and are failing miserably to deal with it. Imo.
I agree entirely. I was in central Brussels yesterday and the amount of begging going on is shocking. Governments all over western Europe seem to be engaged in some sort of competitive compassion, not one daring to suggest we try to stop the flow. I note a Swedish left wing (aren't they all in Sweden? government official suggesting native Swedes should be turned out of their own under occupied home to supply more houses for large immigrant families.
Any country over here who suggests restrictions on numbers coming in gets demonised for being unsympathetic to the plight of the migrants. Then we have an idiot like Merkel who warmly invites them to come and then demands everybody else must take their fair share in a show of solidarity. No, Merkel, you invited them so you take them.
There is real anger out there among the general population, fury at our politicians. And if there were even more evidence that the EU is good for little more than producing regulations and expanding their own little world, this is it. This is like watching a slow motion train wreck.