For the second day in a row, the Brussels police have been ordered to take down 17 cardboard tents in which underage asylum seekers have been sleeping since Monday evening because they did not receive the shelter they are legally entitled to.
The cardboard tents were set up by humanitarian organisations in front of the Humanitarian Hub at the Avenue du Port as a last resort for unaccompanied minors, as the organisations – who have previously stated that while there is a solution for the reception crisis, the "political will is lacking" – no longer had the capacity or resources to provide proper shelter.
However, the Brussels police were ordered to take these cardboard tents down by Brussels City mayor Philippe Close first on Wednesday morning and again on Thursday morning, despite the heavy criticism that followed the decision.
"Again, the police came to break down the cardboard tents of unaccompanied minors this morning. For shame, Philippe Close," said Joost Depotter, policy and support coordinator at Refugee Work Flanders and General Secretary for the Human Rights League. "Perhaps do not have shelter broken down until you also offer accommodation afterwards?"
Translation of Tweet by Thomas Willekens of Refugee Work Flanders: "How we deal with children, part 2. Again, minors were forced to spend the night in cardboard tents. Again they were awakened by the police, who came to tear down their only roof. These political games must stop."
However, as it falls under the Federal Government's competence, Close has not offered an alternative solution, his spokesperson Carole Poncin confirmed to The Brussels Times.
"However, it was announced that the Brussels Regional Government and the State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Nicole de Moor reached an agreement for the emergency shelter of 40 unaccompanied minors in a building in the municipality of Ixelles yesterday evening," Poncin said.
Still, the federal ministers on Wednesday evening failed to reach an agreement about opening a large reception centre for asylum seekers, which State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Nicole de Moor had argued for earlier in the day.
Need for rapid emergency shelter
Last week, the Federal Government acknowledged that Belgium's Federal Asylum agency Fedasil cannot handle the reception crisis alone and decided that 150 staff members from other services had to be brought in.
"Meanwhile, in order not to leave children on the street, there is a need for rapid humanitarian emergency shelter, and for that help is needed from other departments," De Moor spokesperson Sieghild Lacoere confirmed to The Brussels Times.
Additionally, measures that should speed up the handling of applications for asylum by unaccompanied minors – which falls under the competence of Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne – will also be taken.
In the meantime, the government is working on three pillars: limiting the influx of asylum seekers, accelerating the outflow, and in the meantime creating temporary emergency capacity to prevent people from sleeping on the street, Lacoere explained. "Shelter alone is not the solution."
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However, even this shelter is not being made available to those legally entitled to it, as the Fedasil reception network has been under heavy pressure since May: first single men, then unaccompanied minors and now families with children, one as young as six months old, have been sent back to the streets for some weeks.
In February, Fedasil received approval to expand its capacity to 35,000 sheltered places, and already created 1,500 extra ones, which cannot be used as a result of a shortage of staff and the challenge to take on new people. On Thursday morning, Fedasil staff protested their lack of resources to deal with the reception crisis for the third time under the current government.
"Third time this legislature that Fedasil staff is on the street. This is enough, a solution is needed. Stop the political games. Provide emergency shelter for everyone on the street now," Willekens said on Twitter.
Within the framework of De Moor's 'Winter Plan,' the Brussels-Capital Region is working on the concrete roll-out of a total of 1,200 places for emergency shelter, separate from Fedasil. There should be more clarity on this soon.
Belgium's reception crisis explained
For more than a year now, hundreds of asylum seekers have been sleeping rough as a result of Belgium's failure to provide them with the shelter they are legally entitled to.
Fedasil, Belgium's Federal Asylum agency, operates several reception centres across Belgium (of which Petit Château in Brussels has become the most notorious), where people who have been granted asylum in the country should receive a bed, bath and food (or a sheltered place).
Once the rush of asylum seekers coming to the country temporarily slowed down following the migration crisis, the government reduced the number of sheltered places, closing down Fedasil centres.
Since October last year, this figure is once again increased slowly, and the government is not responding to the rise in demand for sheltered places.
Instead, it created a waiting list which prioritised minors and families with children, leaving single men to sleep on the streets, and resulting in Fedasil being convicted more than 4,500 times for failing to provide shelter.