The Brussels authorities put 163 asylum seekers from the Paleizenstraat squat up in a hotel in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw yesterday without informing the local authorities. Sint-Pieters-Leeuw is a Flemish municipality in the area bordering Brussels. Mayor Jan Desmeth and Governor of Flemish Brabant Province Jan Spooren (both Flemish nationalist) are upset.
Neither the office of Brussels PM Vervoort (Francophone socialist) or that of Belgian asylum secretary De Moor (Flemish Christian democrat) had informed the local mayor.
“I’m very cross,” said the mayor. “You’re responsible for public order and health and then suddenly people arrive and you don’t know anything about it!”
Governor Spooren says he only got a bell yesterday afternoon: “There was no prior consultation. It’s unacceptable how they are now trying to find an excuse to shift the responsibility”.
Mayor Desmeth says only 80 of the 83 asylum seekers had been medically screened. “I requisitioned doctors. Several people had to be taken to a Brussels hospital with scabies. There were other people in the hotel, businesspeople. This was no ideal situation”.
The mayor hopes to investigate why the asylum seekers ended up in his municipality and weren’t taken to accommodation in Brussels. He says the first reaction of the office of Brussels PM Vervoort was to say “OMG, is it Flanders?”