Refugee settlement agency COA said on Wednesday it expects to have enough beds at the Ter Apel reporting centre for the coming days, after two nights of chaos.

Several dozen arrivals at the centre, where all new asylum seekers have to report, were put up in nearby sports halls on Monday and Tuesday evening because of the shortage of beds. Space has now been freed up at other refugee centres to take some of the Ter Apel residents who have already gone through the registration procedure.

“But we are approaching 100% occupancy,” a spokesman told broadcaster NOS. “And the spaces that there are can’t necessarily be taken. It depends on the composition of the group.”

Monday and Tuesday are also the busiest days in Ter Apel, the spokesman said.

The overcrowding and the warning that people may end up sleeping outside came just days after immigration minister Marjolein Faber outlined more about her plans to declare a refugee crisis in the Netherlands and so bypass parliament with emergency measures.

Prime minister Dick School also spoke of the “feeling” many people have about the Netherlands facing a refugee crisis as justification for the far right minister’s plans.

The local authorities association VNG said on Tuesday that Faber should take responsibility for the sudden accommodation shortages, saying there had been little contact between the minister and the VNG about solving the lack of beds.

Faber cancelled a planned meeting with chairman and Doetinchem mayor Mark Boumans last Friday without giving a reason. “There is an acute problem which needs to be solved,” Bouman said. “You should be standing together with the local authorities, not looking the other way.”

Jaap Velema, the mayor of Westerwolde which includes Ter Apel, earlier accused Faber of deliberately leaving people in the cold.

Few beds are being made available because of the lack of a clear strategy, including the plan to declare an emergency and the decision to ditch legislation aimed at ensuring each local authority took its fair share of refugees, the VNG says.

“Councils have no idea what is coming at them,” Bouman said.  

No help

Figures published by RTL earlier this year suggest 194 of the Netherlands 345 local authorities were not providing any accommodation for refugees.

Meanwhile the Volkskrant has reported that Faber is using outdated figures about the forecast number of refugees in her calculations.

Last year, the justice ministry estimated 70,000 refugees would come to the Netherlands this year but the figure is likely to be around 45,000. And Faber’s department has based its calculations on 76,400 refugees in 2025 and 78,780 in 2026, with a budget mounting up to €9.7 billion.

The figures are estimates made in April 2023 and new estimates may be forthcoming in October, the paper said.