4,200 refugees reach the Netherlands in one week

The number of refugees entering the Netherlands reached 4,200 last week, junior justice minister Klaas Dijkhoff said on Tuesday.

It is the largest number so far. The week before there were 3,100 refugees and the one before that 1,800.

Empty prisons, conference centres and other public buildings are being turned into emergency centres to house them.

Tents

For instance, Nijmegen city council is setting up a massive camp of tents to house 3,000 refugees, and the distinctive dome prisons in Arnhem and Haarlem will house several hundred asylum seekers, as will the Jaarbeurs exhibition centre in Utrecht.

Amsterdam has also agreed to take in 1,500 people, 400 of whom will be housed in a former prison in the Havenstraat. The rest will be spread between two sports halls and a former council office building, the NRC reports.

However, Dijkhoff says more needs to be done, because refugees with permission to stay in the Netherlands will eventually need permanent housing.

Money

Foreign affairs minister Bert Koenders said on Tuesday that a ‘massive amount of money’ must be sent from Europe to the Middle East in order to help Syrian refugees. He was speaking during a visit to a refugee camp in Libanon.

Koenders says the money is necessary to ensure that these refugees have ‘a future’ in their own region of the world.

The Dutch government recently made €110m available for Syrian refugee camps.