Belgium Spooked by Migrant Influx as Europe's Refugees
Crisis Spirals by EDOUARD
DUFRASNE ZEEBRUGGE,
Belgium — Don't feed the refugees, and calls
for a "camp like Guantanamo." This is just some of the rhetoric
coming out of Belgium, where a new front line in the European migrant crisis
has opened up.
While the influx in the tiny nation has
yet to reach the crisis levels of its neighbors, a possible incursion of
migrants wanting to make their way to the U.K. has spooked officials.
The director of a Belgian regional
tourism office, Peter De Wilde, warned that hotels and hostels would lose
government help and subsidies if they housed registered asylum seekers along
with "regular" guests or for periods of more than three months.
Meanwhile, the mayor of a swanky beach
resort near the port city of Zeebrugge called for a "camp like
Guantanamo" to house them. And on February 1, Carl Decaluwé, governor of
the Province West-Flanders, urged Belgians not to feed refugees "otherwise
more will come."
The flow of migrants in Belgium has been
a small fraction of the more than 1 million of those who entered Europe in 2015
— but it is growing. In November, police detained and processed 362. By
January, that number had risen to 950, according to the Province of
West-Flanders.
"The number of refugees has risen,
there are many more asylum seekers entering the country this year than the
years before," said Dirk Jacobs, a professor at the Université Libre de
Bruxelles specializing in migration. "Thousands of trucks end up in
Belgium, so quite simply that's the final stop for migrants who traveled in
them."
The rise in arrivals comes as
neighboring France continues dismantling the
sprawling "Jungle" camp housing some 4,000 in Calais, on the English Channel, and
as Hungary sends troops to reinforce its
borders.
Those who are detained in Belgium are
immediately sent to the last European country they were in before arriving in
Belgium, or if they have no documentation given the opportunity to claim asylum
and released.
Interior Minister Jan Jambon has
warned that the number of detained could reach into the thousands as migrants
struggle to find alternative routes to Britain.
"The problem that we need to
solve here is about maintaining public order," he said while announcing a
February 22 sweep that netted 619 migrants during its first 7 days.
Belgium also has begun patrolling
its border with France and suspended a Europe-wide passport-free agreement
because of what it said was an increase in arrivals from France. Migrants
sheltering in Stella Maris Church Zeebrugge, the only place in the country with
ferries to the U.K., insist they post no threat.
"TRYING TO SCARE THESE PEOPLE
IS USELESS — THEY TRAVELED 8,000 KILOMETERS TO GET HERE AND THEY HAVE ALREADY
LOST EVERYTHING."
Twenty-three-year-old Rasool said
all he wanted to do was find a safe and welcoming home after leaving Iran,
where he said he was in danger because of his conversion to Christianity.
After spending the night trying
unsuccessfully to access Zeebrugge's port, Rasool said he returned to Stella
Maris only to discover the police had detained around 40 of migrants who had
been sheltering there. Not only that, he said, everyone's belongings had been
removed — including his German identity document.
"All I want now is to go back
to Germany," said Rasool, who only provided his first name. "But I
don't know if I will manage without my papers."
Under European Union law, refugees
have to claim asylum in the first country they arrive in. Some have traveled
across the continent trying to avoid getting official documents until getting
where they want to settle.
Another migrant told NBC News she
had been on the road for months and was close to giving up hope. The
22-year-old woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her family
still in Iran, said she had lost all her money to a smuggler who never
delivered on his promise to take her to the U.K.
Belgian police detain a migrant who
had taken shelter at the Stella Maris Church in Zeebrugge, Belgium, February
16, 2016. Edouard Dufrasne
"I'm so close, but I cannot
take it anymore. It's very hard, very hard," said the former psychology
student from Isfahan, Iran. "I'm tired of fleeing the police and living
outside in the cold."
She has abandoned her quest to
emigrate to the U.K. and will claim asylum in Belgium — which she sees as a
defeat.
Up until mid-February, the refugees
around Stella Maris spent their days in the square outside the church. They
have grown more discreet to avoid growing police checks and have abandoned
tents to shelter in sleeping bags covered with plastic tarp.
Volunteer Ronny Blomme, who has
been helping migrants by giving them food, drinks, sleeping bags and warm
clothes at the church since they began arriving in November, says he is wants
to make up for the failure of officials to deal with the problem humanely.
"Trying to scare these people
is useless — they traveled 8,000 kilometers [4,970 miles] to get here and they
have already lost everything," he said. "What we need is a
humanitarian solution."
"THE PEOPLE ARE OFFENDED OF OUR
REACTIONS, BUT BECAUSE THEY DO NOT LIVE HERE. IF THEY SAW THIS EVERY MORNING
UNDER THEIR WINDOWS, THEY WOULD REACT DIFFERENTLY."
Blomme, who served in the Belgian
army during the war in the former Yugoslavia, said he was angry about the way
his government was dealing with the migrants.
"In the Balkans at the time,
refugees were treated better than they are here today," he said. Didier
Franckx, another volunteer, admits that he doesn't want refugees to camp there.
"It does not amuse us," he said. "But we cannot let these people
die of hunger and cold."
But some of Stella Maris' neighbors
don't agree with the volunteers' work and hope the government will clean up the
city. "If we continue to help them, in a few weeks we will end up like in
Calais," said neighbor Marieke, who only provided her first name.
"The people are offended of our
reactions, but because they do not live here. If they saw this every morning
under their windows, they would react differently," she added. "The
government is right to take decisive measures."
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