Dutch people protest against the arrival of Afghan refugees — police forced to intervene

Last night, a protest was held against the arrival of hundreds of refugees from Afghanistan at De Harskamp army camp in the municipality of Ede. Tensions escalated with car tires being set alight. The police were forced to use dogs to disperse the crowd.

The protest was initially peaceful. However, as the evening wore on, tensions mounted — with the demonstrators setting car tires on fires and chanting nationalist slogans, such as “own people first”, reports Omroep Gelderland.  

There were about 250 protestors — eek! — most of whom were young people from the neighbourhood and surrounding villages.

Shelters for Afghan evacuees

The emergency shelter in Ede was opened yesterday, as the first evacuees from Afghanistan arrived in the afternoon, reports RTL Nieuws. The facility will be able to accommodate 800 people and is one of three emergency shelters that have already been put to use in the Netherlands.

The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) announced that it would open a fourth emergency shelter in Nijmegen. The facility will have space for 750 to 1,000 people until January 2022, at the latest.

What are your thoughts on this protest? Tell us in the comments below!

Feature Image: Foto-VDW/Depositphotos

Jen Lorimer 🇿🇼
Jen Lorimer 🇿🇼
An avid tea drinker, Jen was born and raised in Zimbabwe. She moved to Utrecht in 2017 to pursue her history degree. She loves people-watching, canoeing the Utrecht canals, and observing how the Dutch come alive in summer. Having been traumatised by a Dutch circle party, Jen wants to help equip other internationals with tips and tricks to survive and thrive in this wonderful flat country.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you for giving the humane and kind note to this event.I feel embarrassed by the behavior of my (ex-)fellow country people and their slogans.

  2. Although I live in Canada, I can’t imagine people fleeing a country where they fear for their lives and have to leave everything behind… only then to arrive in the Netherlands to protests… adding to their sheer sense of displacement. I can only say that I’m grateful that I (and most of us in the “West”) live in peace and never have to face the horrible predicament Afghans are facing.

  3. I think protesting refugees is shortsighted and idiotic. My family arrived as refugees to the US in the 1980s. The help that the government gave us amounted to 1 year of food stamps (about 200 USD/month for a total of 2,400). From that, my parents were able to work menial jobs, scrape it together and eventually buy a small home, which they later sold in order to buy a store. My parents and their 4 children (including me) worked at that store and lived above it. I worked from the age of 5. My siblings went on to have their own small businesses and I went on to become a lawyer. The amount of tax revenues that my siblings and I have paid to the US government (and that I now pay to the Dutch government now that I have moved to the Netherlands) is many more times that initial investment of 2400 USD.

    So I think refugees contribute much more than they’re given. Also, I find it ironic and disgusting for colonists to become nationalists and internal facing only when it suits them.

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