The personal data of 250 asylum seekers was left behind in a rubbish container after the closure of an asylum centre in Theux. This was reported by Het Laatste Nieuws on Saturday.
The centre in question is Camping Polleur in the province of Liège. It also served as a Fedasil reception centre during the past winter period. The Federal Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers rented the entire campsite for six months and was able to accommodate up to 250 people there. The centre will also provide accommodation during the coming winter period.
HLN was given access to a selection of the hundreds of documents. These include asylum applications with photos, names and dates of birth, as well as documents containing family and medical information. The documents were simply thrown into the rubbish container during the clean-up in April, rather than being shredded, for example. They related to applications from refugees from conflict areas in Syria, Gaza, Niger, Rwanda, Eritrea, Angola, Burkina Faso and Congo, among others.
‘This is obviously unacceptable and Fedasil regrets it,’ says Fedasil's communications director Mieke Candaele in the newspaper. An internal investigation is underway. ‘It is not yet clear whether this is simply an individual error on the part of one or more employees who failed to follow the procedure, at least in part, or whether individual residents also left their folders containing personal documents in the container when they left.’
Minister of Asylum and Migration Anneleen Van Bossuyt (N-VA) wants to wait for the results of the investigation first. ‘If this is a case of negligence, it is absolutely unacceptable and we deeply regret it.’
