Probe under way after baby dies at asylum centre in Netherlands

The Dutch authorities are probing a three-month-old baby’s death as asylum seekers face an accommodation crisis.

The situation in Ter Apel has turned into a national crisis

Dutch authorities are investigating a death of a three-month-old baby at a reception centre for asylum seekers in the Netherlands, highlighting the lack of adequate accommodation for refugees in the country, which has become a national crisis.

The Health and Youth Care Inspectorate said in a statement that the baby died on Wednesday morning in the sports hall of the reception centre for asylum seekers in Ter Apel village.

The baby’s name, gender and nationality have not been publicly released.

“A three-month-old baby died last night in the sports hall in Ter Apel. Like everyone, I am deeply shocked by this terrible event,” State Secretary Eric van der Burg said on Twitter.

Refugees wait outdoors at the centre for asylum seekers in Ter Apel

The situation in Ter Apel has turned into a national crisis, due to the lack of space at asylum centres and the inability of municipalities to provide shelter to refugees.

The Dutch Red Cross set up tents in the centre’s garden due to the lack of beds but removed them following a backlash.

Now many refugees, including women, children and the elderly, continue to sleep in the garden.

While the government was attempting to facilitate the transfer of a hotel purchased in the village of Albergen to the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) to accommodate 300 refugees, it faced protests from local residents.

Many Dutch lawmakers and the public are now demanding an urgent explanation from the officials after the shocking death of the baby.

‘Inhuman’ living conditions

The Dutch branch of MSF deployed in Ter Apel on Thursday – a first for the organisation usually giving medical assistance to those in need in war zones.

“As from today we are giving medical care in Ter Apel,” Doctors Without Borders diretor Judith Sargentini said.

“Living conditions there are inhuman and must be improved immediately,” she told the AFP news agency. “There are no showers and the toilets are dirty,” she said.

“We have reached a low point in our country,” added Groningen mayor Koen Schuiling, calling on other municipalities to open their doors and help alleviate overcrowding at Ter Apel.

More than 100 people have spent nights outdoors, sleeping on

 the roadside with little or no access to shelter or food 

 

Guinea to keep timetable for AFCON 2025 football tournament

Guinea was originally scheduled to host the continental tournament in 2023 but the list of host nations was reshuffled in 2018.

Supporters of Guinea national football team cheer in Sekondi, Ghana, January 28, 2008 during the African Cup of Nations football match against Namibia

Guinea’s military government has told a Confederation of African Football (CAF) mission that it will meet the timetable for staging the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (CAN).

CAF has sent a team to the West African state to assess its readiness to host the tournament.

Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who appointed himself president after taking power in a coup in September 2021, met the delegation on Wednesday.

“They came with a message, and this message was, ‘Is 2025 feasible for us [Guineans] or not?’,” Sports Minister Lansana Bea Diallo said.

The CAF team held out the possibility of postponing CAN 2025 until 2026 or 2027, he said.

“The president was straightforward – ‘We made this a national priority, and the national priority is for 2025, we won’t go for 2026 or 2027, we will organise it in 2025’,” the minister was quoted on state TV late Wednesday as saying.

“And that’s the word of the head of state which has been given today,” he said.

Hosting Africa’s biggest sporting event is a major challenge for Guinea, which suffers a chronic lack of sporting and transport infrastructure.

The country also has a long history of political turbulence.

Last year’s coup saw the removal of octogenarian President Alpha Conde after bloody protests over his bid for a third term in office.

The takeover has stirred frictions with the influential West African bloc ECOWAS, which has been pushing for an early return to civilian rule.

On the eve of the CAF visit, Doumbouya issued a decree declaring the 2025 competition an issue of “national and priority interest”.

All spending for organisational needs “will be processed as a matter of urgency” and procedures will be fast-tracked to allocate land needed for the tournament.

In March, Doumbouya named a new organising committee after one of its members publicly doubted whether it was feasible to host the tournament in 2025.

The CAF mission appeared to have been encouraged by the visit.

“Today we are really reassured by Guinea’s preparedness,” said one of its members, Benin’s Mathurin de Chacus.

Doumbouya “spoke like a soldier – he’s determined to organise CAN for the Guinean public”, he said in remarks broadcast on television.

The delegation will brief CAF on the outcome of its mission, he said.

Guinea was originally scheduled to host the tournament in 2023, but this was pushed back by two years when the list of organising nations was reshuffled in 2018.

The 2023 event will be hosted by Ivory Coas