Live blog – 2 soldiers from Belgium left for Ukraine, Polish deputy prime minister calls for international peace mission
Flemish Minister of Internal Affairs Bart Somers (open VLD) says that Flanders will achieve the targets of 6,000 shelters for Ukrainian refugees and 18,000 by the end of the month. “We are fully building capacity and we will continue to do so, I think we will get there,” he says in “Terzake”.
Some of the refugees are received in people’s homes. In addition, it is the local authorities that must provide collective reception. This happens in rest homes, monasteries, holiday villages and empty buildings, for example.
In a next phase, emergency villages are also planned, if necessary, with shelter in (small) residential containers. “It will be okay. We shouldn’t be stupid about that,” says Somers. That is not allowed, we do not have that capacity. If we want to realize these emergency villages, the question is: how are we going to do that, where do we find the material? That is a big jobbut everyone is cooperating.”
The minister stated that it is very difficult to estimate refugees will come there, but it could be up to 120,000 people in Flanders. “In that spoken scenario, we are talking about ten times the number of previous asylum crises.”