Netherlands refugee center where infant died evacuated

Authorities in the Netherlands have evacuated the Ter Apel center for asylum seekers, on the border with Germany, in an attempt to relieve overcrowding at a facility where a baby died this week.

Dutch authorities have confirmed the transfer of hundreds of the refugees to different cities in the country, after a health inspection had detected serious irregularities, reports broadcaster NOS.

Numerous people have been sleeping rough for weeks in Ter Apel and protests have been constant in recent days, following the death of a three-month-old baby. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) activated for the first time an intervention on Dutch soil to respond to an “increasingly inhumane” situation.

The Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, had pledged to resolve as soon as possible a situation that he himself recognized as “terrible.” “Right now we are not focused on anything else,” he declared.