Swiss army extends accommodation offer for asylum seekers
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.
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