The Netherlands will soon face a severe shortage of accommodation for asylum seekers unless urgent action is taken, Nurten Albayrak Temur, director of the government’s COA refugee services, says in Monday’s Volkskrant.

Over the past six years, a number of refugee centres were closed down as numbers fell. In 1998, 42,000 refugees arrived in the Netherlands. In 2004 and 2005, the figure was around 5,400, the paper says.
But pressure on the refugee centres is mounting because there has been a slight increase in arrivals from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, Albayrak Temur said. In addition, far fewer refugees are freeing up space by leaving the centres and moving into ordinary houses.