A Dutch refugee registration centre in Ter Apel has found itself making headlines — and it’s not good news.

With a large influx of asylum seekers passing through its doors, the centre is often left at breaking point and begging for help.

However, help has yet to come. According to multiple reports, those received there must now deal with horrific living conditions.

A leaked report

According to a leaked GGD report, asylum seekers who arrive at Ter Apel must cope with a lack of hygiene facilities, drug use, and the resulting unsafe environments.

READ MORE | The asylum crisis in the Netherlands: here’s the rundown

To be more specific, the report mentions that the few toilets on site have overflowing waste bins, mattresses “do not appear to have been cleaned,” and that many men at the reception centre are methadone users.

Added to this chaos is the fact that there isn’t enough room for people at the centre, with the report stating that people were left to sleep in the waiting areas.

This can then lead to violence and tension among those stuck there.

A “downright worrying” situation

Following a further report by the Justice and Security Inspectorate, the UN has stepped in to voice its own opinion, finding the situation at Ter Apel “downright worrying.”

The UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, says that the conditions are due to a lack of flow in the system, with people at registration centres not being moved to asylum seeker centres fast enough.

The result? In the UNHCR’s words, a “bankrupt reception system”, the NOS reports.

The UHNCR is now calling for a second registration centre to be established.

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Feature Image: Directie Voorlichting/Flickr/CC2.0

Yep, you read that right. It has been claimed by “diplomatic sources” that Boris Johnson considered sending spies to the Netherlands to seize coronavirus vaccines during the UK vaccine rollout.

Why did the former British Prime Minister feel the need to turn a situation that already felt like a horror movie into a spy movie?

According to him, the EU “stole” five million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines that were meant for the UK.

An EU blockade

Sources tell the Daily Mail that Johnson was left “enraged” after Brussels imposed a blockade of the five million vaccines.

Why did the EU do this? Apparently, Brussels was having quite a dispute with Halix, which produced the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Leiden-based company had sold a batch of five million jabs to the UK, but the EU needed to ensure it had its “fair share,” according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Investigate military operations

As a result, according to one source, Johnson asked “security services to look at whether there were any options for physically going and taking the vaccines from the Netherlands and bringing them here.”

“He did ask whether there were military options for just going and getting these vaccines.”

The idea of carrying out a covert raid was apparently dropped, however, after advisors warned that this would sour relations between the EU and the UK. WWIII and a pandemic? No one wanted that.

Johnson is expected to spill all the tea about the matter this week during a coronavirus inquiry.

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