They are Afghans, Syrians, Palestinians, Eritreans, adults and children, men and women. From 2,000 to 3,000, according to estimates by various NGOs, who sleep in the middle of winter in small tents or on cardboard boxes, in the corridors of stations, shopping malls, squats or close to the Brussels Christmas market .
Unheard of in Belgium, a country which had made a considerable effort in 2015, mobilizing even the resources of the army to welcome Syrians fleeing the war. He also offered “temporary protection” for some 60,000 Ukrainians since the start of the conflict that is ravaging their country. However, the government says it is unable today to find solutions for these new asylum seekers. « Alexander De Croo’s team [le premier ministre]focused on other issues, is the first to trivialize a situation where, during several freezing nights last week, people had to sleep outside”explains a municipal elected official who prefers to remain anonymous: his party, the Socialist Party (PS), is a member of the federal coalition.
Recently, Catherine Moureaux, PS mayor of Molenbeek, indicated her refusal to see a temporary reception center become permanent to house 600 people. The municipality, one of the poorest and most densely populated in the country, has offered makeshift shelter to migrants gathered under a bridge but refuses to do more. Mme Moureaux estimates at 7,000 the number of homeless people who should be cared for by Fedasilthe Federal Agency for the reception of asylum seekers, apparently overwhelmed. “It’s a shame, it’s a real problem of the rule of law”she explained, on December 15, designating “the Flemish political scene”and, particularly, the Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Mooras those responsible for the deterioration of the situation.
Dispatch plan not applied
Mme de Moor, a Flemish Christian Democrat, member of the CD&V party, in free fall against the nationalist right and the xenophobic extreme right, affirms that a plan for distributing applicants to 90 municipalities in the kingdom exists. It is apparently not applied, most of the migrants remaining concentrated in the capital, where the services lack the personnel to receive them and process their file. Mme de Moor affirms, moreover, that we can no longer find reception places.
Enough to anger the actors in the field and the lawyers, who demand respect for the right of asylum and have obtained, since the start of this new crisis, 7,000 convictions of the State by the courts, but also the parties of the majority. The Flemish environmental group Groen thus demands the resignation of the Secretary of State, and its French-speaking ally, Ecolo, demands the urgent distribution of the applicants in the country. Paul Magnette, president of the French-speaking PS, deplored, as for him, on December 15, in the newspaper The eveningthat the Secretary of State “make believe that everything is linked to a lack of space”. He added: “The truth is that the Flemish formations and the Reform Movement [droite libérale francophone] don’t want to solve the problem. »
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