Refugees from Ukraine are ever more likely to be sleeping on the streets or in cars, according to an alarm signal from the Dutch Red Cross.

According to the organisation, 435 people from Ukraine asked for aid from the Red Cross in August because they had nowhere to stay, and 75 of them said that they had been sleeping rough in vehicles or outside.

It cited stories of a 17-year-old wandering round alone, a family of four sleeping for a week and a half in their car at a shelter in Emmeloord and a family with a one-year-old staying for days at Utrecht station.

Suzanne Segaar, head of national aid at the Dutch Red Cross, said the situation was desperate. “It is terrible that this is the harsh reality,” she said in a press release. “We are talking about unaccompanied children, people with war trauma and mothers with children. They need help.”

The Red Cross said there are issues at a temporary shelter in Westervoort, Gelderland, which should take refugees for just a few nights until they find a place in longer-term lodgings but where in reality people stay for up to four weeks with almost no privacy.

It normally operates in global disaster zones but, since 2022, it has been running shelters for refugees in the Netherlands.