'Not my dream': The sorry lot of refugees in Brussels

BRUSSELS — Despite temperatures dipping below zero, dozens of people sleep in flimsy tents in a row hundreds of meters long beside a canal in Brussels amid a growing asylum crisis.

The asylum-seekers living in the makeshift camp in the heart of the Belgian capital come from countries and regions including Afghanistan, sub-Saharan Africa, the Palestinian territories and Syria.

"It was not my dream," said Moussa, 21, who left Sierra Leone in 2020.

Some say they have been living on the street for months, unable to take a shower or wash their clothes, and forced to rely on charities for food.

Souleymane Camara, 24, said he arrived in Brussels at the end of January after an arduous, four-year journey from Guinea to Belgium via Mali, Algeria and Tunisia before he crossed to Italy "by canoe".

In the biting cold he shares a tent and only a few blankets with Moussa, who did not want to give his full name.

Both urge authorities to admit them to a temporary shelter while their asylum request is examined.

"Eating and sleeping outside is difficult," said Camara, an apprentice decorator. "I want to train and work."

Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, sounded the alarm last week over what it called the undignified conditions the migrants are living in. The aid group installed a dozen mobile toilets and a sink with access to running water nearby.

Migrants deserve "basic hygiene and dignity ... in the heart of the European capital", MSF said, denouncing Belgium's "disastrous management" of the situation.

David Vogel of MSF said the tents first appeared at the end of 2021 near the federal building known as the Petit Chateau, (Small Castle), that usually directs asylum-seekers to accommodation after they register.

However, by 2021 all the housing network's 33,000 places were taken.

As conditions deteriorate, some are forced to sleep on the streets for as long as six months, Vogel said.

Nearly 37,000 asylum requests were registered in Belgium last year, 11,000 more than in 2021, according to official figures.

Across the European Union the number of migrants arriving is on the rise. Last year there were nearly one million requests for international protection, a level last seen during the 2015-16 refugee crisis.

Belgian officials have said their main aim is to speed up the processing of applications to return so-called economic migrants to their country more quickly.

Francois De Smet, a centrist opposition MP, said the makeshift camp of "100 to 200 people" in central Brussels was shameful for Belgium.

Charities and nongovernmental organizations working with refugees have called for a more permanent solution to resolve the lack of accommodation.

However, "there is no political will to see this crisis resolved", Vogel said.

Agencies Via Xinhua