Asylum seeker army tents coming down in Bern
Date
11/18/2015 6:34:39 AM
(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Army tents housing 300 asylum seekers in canton Bern will be dismantled from mid-December and not used for emergency accommodation this winter. Meanwhile Swiss cantons are struggling to find sufficient housing to cope with large influxes this year.
In a statement issued on Monday evening the Lyss-Kappelen communal authorities said they were “happy” that the decision had been taken to end the emergency tent accommodation set up on the property of the local asylum centre.
Occupied by 300-350 people the tent infrastructure and organisation was ‘overloaded’ the communal presidents declared.
The army tents had been set up in September as a temporary measure to cope with influxes of asylum seekers. Some local politicians criticised plans to reinstall the tents elsewhere and use them during the cold winter months as “unacceptable and unworthy”. Some 200 asylum seekers will be housed at the transit centre from mid-December the statement said.
In canton Aargau as well tents were used this summer to temporarily house asylum seekers but later dismantled. Officials are considering replacing them with mobile Ikea housing units as are cantons Basel and Fribourg.
Swiss migration officials anticipate 29000 asylum applicants for 2015 an increase on recent years but below the peaks of the 1990s. However the State Secretariat for Migration recently warned the 26 cantons that they might have to accommodate more arrivals.
Local resistance and a dearth of suitable accommodation mean that housing for asylum-seekers remains a challenge. In order to put up new arrivals for short periods the cantons and communes have resorted to providing a wide range of unusual properties such as underground military bunkers converted shipping containers army tents hospitals an old fire station and even a country mansion.
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