Vysni Lhoty, North Moravia, Aug 6 (CTK) – The first 35 refugees are to arrive in the new detention facility in Vysni Lhoty, north Moravia, on Friday and up to 70 will stay there by the end of the week, Miloslav Koudelny, director of the Refugee Facilities Administration, told reporters yesterday.
Only men stay in the camp with the total capacity of 220 beds.
“Transfer of 60 to 70 people is scheduled for the weekend. It is not possible to say exactly whether the capacity of the centre will be filled in a week or two,” Koudelny said.
Illegal migrants will be sent to Vysni Lhoty from the facilities in Zastavka, south Moravia, and Bela pod Bezdezem, central Bohemia.
Most of them are from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, Koudelny said.
The facility in Vysni Lhoty is sufficiently protected to prevent the clients’ escape. All windows are barred and the area outside the facility where they can take strolls is also fenced, he said.
The four-metre-high fence around the outdoor area is yet to be fitted with barbed wire by the end of August at the latest, he added.
Radim Danek, deputy to the Moravia-Silesia regional police chief, said the police had reinforced patrols in the village to guarantee the inhabitants’ safety around-the-clock.
Koudelny said the foreigners waiting for an administrative expulsion according to the Dublin Regulation or for the transfer to another country within re-admission will be detained in the Vysni Lhoty camp.
“They have no chance of leaving the facility. They will have some activities available, we will provide accommodation, catering, sanitary means fot them, simply basic items that they need for living,” he said.
Some 60 people, mainly from the surroundings will find jobs in the camp that will be put into operation on Friday. However, its full operation starts on September 1 only. Until then, meals will be brought there.
Its inhabitants will have quite a loose daily regime, but they should respect the silence of the night. The “lights-out” shoudl be at 23:00, Koudelny said.
Vysni Lhoty Mayor Dana Novakova said the village had no advantages connected with the facility.
“We have asked Interior Minister [Milan] Chovanec to include these facilities into the government resolution since we suppose that all municipalities that are afflicted by this problem should get the same contribution,” she said.
Local inhabitants do not like a refugee facility in their neighbourhood, but this is not the problem of this village only, but of the whole country since people have fears of foreigners, Novakova said.
The village could not prevent the opening of the facility, she added.
The complex in Vysni Lhoty, situated on 75,000 square metres, served as a refugee facility in the past, until 2009. It had the capacity of 580 beds. Foreigners moved around the village freely then.
Some of the 100 people who came to see the camp yesterday expressed fears of refugees.
However, the conditions in the facility are much stricter than in the past and it is hard to leave it arbitrarily, Koudelny assured them.
hol/dr/pv
