Groningen village on high alert as refugee centre tensions rise

The mayor of a Groningen village has banned people from gathering close to its asylum seekers centre after social media calls for a demonstration by people ‘sick of refugees doing what they like’.

Several dozen people had congregated at the car park next to the centre in Oude Pekela on Wednesday evening and, police say, had planned to enter the complex itself. The car park is outside the area where demonstrations are banned and there were no arrests.

Police told reporters the unrest followed several incidents in the preceding week. In one, a centre resident hit a policeman over the head with a beer bottle. In another, a refugee ‘misbehaved’ in a supermarket, broadcaster NOS said. Police are also looking into social media reports that a village girl had been assaulted, NOS said.

Mayor Jaap Kuin told local broadcaster RTV Noord that the trouble was being caused by a group of ‘eastern European asylum seekers’ who are extremely unlikely to get a residence permit.

He is in talks with the refugee settlement agency COA, police and justice ministry officials in an effort to find a solution.

Safe

Villagers, he told RTV Noord, do have a point in that there has been an increase in incidents. ‘If you live in a village, you want to feel safe and not be harassed,’ he said.

Oude Pekela is a village of 8,000 close to the German border and considered to be one of the poorest places in the Netherlands. The local refugee centre was established in 2001 and has capacity for 500 people.

The village hit the headlines in 1987 with reports that children had been S3xually abused on a massive scale by men disguised as clowns. The mystery was never solved but it now widely thought to have been a case of mass hysteria.