The Swiss voice in the world since 1935

Swiss army extends accommodation offer for asylum seekers

bed bunks
The rising number of refugees has strained resources in some cantons. © Keystone / Ti-press / Davide Agosta

Switzerland's army is extending its accommodation offer for asylum seekers until the end of 2024.

It has agreed to cede around 3,700 places in army infrastructures to the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) until the end of 2024 if necessary.

In addition, the SEM, in close cooperation with the cantons, the local communities and the army, has secured more than 1,000 additional, quickly available places. Further places are still being clarified, the SEM announced in Bern on Tuesday. Most of these are places in civil defense facilities, which the cantons had reported to the SEM in August.

After a thorough examination of the proposals, civil defense facilities in the cantons of Bern, Geneva, Glarus and Zurich with a total of 710 places could definitely be put into operation from October and November. A further 300 places would be located on Glaubenberg (OW), where the army would cede another building to the SEM from November until the end of April 2024 at the latest.

Thanks to the accommodating attitude of the army and the civil defense facilities in the cantons, the SEM would continue to have a total of around 10,000 accommodation places at its disposal, and as of November even around 10,700. These capacities in what are now more than 30 federal asylum centers are currently more than 70 percent exhausted.

In order to cope with the expected increase in asylum and protection applications in the coming months and to prevent premature referrals to the cantons, the SEM foreseeably needs more accommodation places. 

PLACEHOLDER

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Daily news

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Daily

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

Biswind restricts air traffic at Zurich Airport

More

Wind restricts air traffic at Zurich Airport

This content was published on The bise, a cold dry wind, played havoc with air traffic at Zurich Airport on Friday. Numerous flights were delayed and some were cancelled.

Read more: Wind restricts air traffic at Zurich Airport
Confederation and cantons profit from banknotes that are not exchanged

More

Swiss authorities profit from unexchanged banknotes

This content was published on The Swiss government and cantons will receive over CHF700 million from the Swiss National Bank because old banknotes worth almost CHF1 billion have not been exchanged.

Read more: Swiss authorities profit from unexchanged banknotes
Lausanne research team develops aquatic robots from fish food

More

Swiss develop robots made of fish food

This content was published on The edible device will collect data on the condition of water bodies or distribute nutrients and medicines in the water.

Read more: Swiss develop robots made of fish food
Legal cannabis reduces abuse, especially among mixed users

More

Legal distribution of cannabis can reduce abuse

This content was published on The legal distribution of cannabis can reduce problematic consumption, particularly among people who also use other drugs, according to a study from Basel.

Read more: Legal distribution of cannabis can reduce abuse

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR