On Thursday, the first Ukrainian families are moving into the first residential units of the emergency village in Antwerp that were built by the city for the reception of refugees.
The construction of the units follows the comments from State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Sammy Mahdi at the start of March that Belgium must consider receiving the large number of refugees arriving in the country with the help of “emergency villages”.
Antwerp decided about a month ago to build a village of prefabricated housing units and multi-purpose communal areas on the Middenvijver site, according to Belga News Agency.
"The fact that the first homes are already ready is an achievement because the site was totally unequipped," said Mayor Bart De Wever (N-VA).
"They are also fully-fledged houses with their own kitchen and sanitary facilities. After all, we don't know how long the people will be staying here. At the moment, one year is planned."
Staying away from dishonest people
The target group of Ukrainian families with children will not be automatically allocated housing in the village, but the city council hopes to convince them to opt for this form of reception instead of falling into the hands of dubious landlords.
"We do offer them here an attractive offer to stay together with their fellow citizens at an attractive price," De Wever said, adding that everything must be done to "keep these people out of the hands of dishonest people who want to exploit them."
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"My biggest concern is that they end up at hundreds or thousands of different addresses that we have no control over, in appalling conditions and at prices that are not reasonable," he concluded.
By mid-June, 600 people should be accommodated in the emergency village in Antwerp and, if necessary, the number can be increased to a thousand.
Earlier this month, Antwerp was criticised for its “extremely slow handling” of administrative dossiers for Ukrainian refugees, which was causing them financial issues, as some were left waiting for months to fully register with the city council.
