Even the largest center is no longer enough for the influx of refugees. The government must help, it sounds from Prague
When the Prague leadership moved its aid center from the Municipal Library to the larger Congress Center on Friday, it believed that such large spaces would be enough for refugees. But as early as noon on Monday, firefighters had to announce a stop for receiving more refugees in the capital. Later, Mayor Zdeněk Hřib announced that the center would reopen to newcomers on Tuesday.
“If the situation does not change, we will get to a state where we will have to declare a stop state,” Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib announced around noon on Monday. Not an hour has passed since his warning and his words have come true – the Prague help center at the Congress Center has stopped taking more refugees. “Personnel capacity is exhausted and we have nowhere to take it. It exceeds the capabilities of the metropolis,” the mayor says.
The main problem is that the vast majority of refugees in the Czech Republic choose Prague as their destination, so some other regional aid centers are less busy. However, as the fire brigade’s representatives point out, no one can force refugees to travel in the Czech Republic other than to Prague. “I will appeal to the Minister of the Interior, Vít Rakušan, for a greater redistribution of visitors to individual regions,” says Mayor Hřib.
⚠️ Due to the long waiting times, the Prague Regional Assistance Center (KACPU) will not receive new refugees within the next 24 hours.
🚒 Check-in will be redirected to other less busy regional assistance centers mainly by fire buses.
– Fire and Rescue Service of the Czech Republic (@hasici_cr) March 7, 2022
According to him, Prague also needs help from the army, because it no longer has accommodation for refugees. “At the moment, we do not have the opportunity to stay in Prague. We want to arrange private accommodation for a while, but we lack some government rules so that there is no chaos in this,” says Hřib.
More than 15,000 refugees have already passed through the center of Prague, of which a thousand have received accommodation from the city. “This is a huge number, and the number of incoming refugees continues to grow. All need to be served, we also provide meals and other things, for example,” said Deputy Mayor Petr Hlubuček, adding that they are very helpful to many non-profit organizations and companies.
Just to give you an idea, for example, on Sunday they processed 3,300 applications in the center of Prague, thousands more people are waiting to be processed. It is not found that Prague would open another center. “It is not possible to implement it. We would probably find other premises, but it is also about the capacity of people who process refugee applications,” the mayor said. The total of 45 counters that now operate in the center, from the foreign police, through the health insurance company to, for example, the staff of the Asylum and Migration Policy Department, is the maximum.
The center of Prague should open on Tuesday
Vladimír Vlček, General Director of the Fire and Rescue Service of the Czech Republic, claims that firefighters show refugees in all possible ways to others to travel to the center than the one in Prague. “But they still return to Prague, even if, for example, the train does not stop with them in Prague,” Vlcek told Czech television.
According to him, buses are ready to transport refugees elsewhere, for example in the Central Bohemian Region, Liberec, Vysočina or České Budějovice. “But so far it is up to the individual refugees to decide whether or not they want to go elsewhere. We cannot order them in any way. Once they are released into the Schengen area, the free movement of people applies to them,” the fire chief explained. And he indicated that a rapid change in the law is likely to be needed. More should be clear in this after Tuesday’s meeting of the Central Crisis Staff, at which, among others, Vít Rakušan (STAN) will be present with the governors of the Ministry of the Interior.
Here you go @Aktualnecz offers a fresh interview with the Mayor of Prague Zdeněk Hřib. I asked him to say what specifically he advised the refugees from Ukraine who needed to process the documents. According to him, on Tuesday the help center will open again for newcomers…. More in the video. pic.twitter.com/dblPui7QbM
– Radek Bartonicek (@R_Bartonicek) March 7, 2022
Mayor Hřib held a second press conference on Monday around five o’clock in the afternoon in a single day, on which he got to the opening of the center on Tuesday. “It is necessary to wait until tomorrow, the opening at a specific time will be determined by the police according to the situation in order to be safe,” Hřib told Aktuálně.cz.
He also warned that refugees without secured accommodation will be given priority. “We give priority to dealing with people who will come and be unattended. We will do this so that no one is here in the cold until overnight. three days, “said the mayor.
The Governor of the Central Bohemian Region, Petra Pecková, pointed out that her region will open another center in Příbram on Tuesday. “We could open another help center in Kladno. We are working on it, but we are facing human resources,” Pecková said. The point is that every other center needs several police officers and officials to serve them, but they are currently lacking. Although the region and Prague are releasing several dozen of their officials for the centers, they must first undergo rapid training.