Reception crisis: the police surround the building where asylum seekers have found refuge, without entering

The police continued to surround, Sunday evening around 10 p.m., a building occupied a few hours earlier by around seventy asylum seekers, rue Georges Matheus in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode. Many police officers are present and control the entrances to the building, but they do not carry out an expulsion, which was feared by the asylum seekers since the police force has accumulated for a few hours.

“Police set up ‘siege’ rather than eviction it seems“, commented the spokesperson for the Stop collective to the reception crisis. “All entrances are controlled by the police, which prevents any entry of food, blankets, water, etc. They seem to want to play exhaustion“, he added.