Poor conditions in refugee shelters: ‘Rats in the ceiling’

Poor conditions in refugee shelters: 'Rats in the ceiling'
Photo credit: Omroep Brabant/Studio040

Rats, leaks and little privacy. The conditions in a shelter for over a hundred Ukrainian refugees on Strausslaan in Eindhoven are bad. The building is in a terrible state. “I couldn’t sleep because of the rats in the ceiling”.

The long corridors where noisy pupils once rushed to their lessons at the ringing of the bell are now home to over a hundred Ukrainian refugees. This building has been a shelter for three years, since the outbreak of war in the Eastern European country. Since then, the residents have regularly suffered from leaks, scabies outbreaks and even two rat plagues.

Discontent

One of the displaced people living here is Victoriia Udowichinko. Behind her, a yellow-blue Ukrainian flag adorns the wall. She has experienced the stories of rats and leaks first-hand. At first, she emphasises how grateful she is to be taken in here, but after some hesitation she shares her discontent. “Sometimes the heating doesn’t work properly. The water in the shower is often very cold too”.

She, like many of the other over a hundred residents, ended up here three years ago when Eindhoven started taking in Ukrainian refugees. “We then had to quickly implement all kinds of facilities for the shelter, such as in this former school building”, Marnix Malmberg, manager at shelter supervisor Neos, explains.

Shortage

He understands that the residents are expressing their dissatisfaction about the conditions. “It is of course far from ideal to live in an old school building. This is not a residential environment, certainly not for three years”. The search for alternatives fails. “We have a major shortage of real estate in the city, there is nothing better”. Both the scabies outbreak and the rat plague have now been resolved.

Poor sleep

Further down the corridor are teenagers Alex Siremko and Maxime Ormandzhi. They have only been here for a week. Both say they are happy to have shelter. “The people here in the Netherlands are very friendly”, Alex says. The men would like to stay here longer. Only in this school building? “Hell no!”, Alex says. “I hope it’s for a short time”.

That’s what Yaroslavna Zahiruiko hoped when she came here. She’s been living in the school building for three years now. “It’s not very nice to live here. We have to share all the sanitary facilities and you don’t have any space for yourself. Some residents share their rooms with strangers. And we’ve had problems with rats twice”.

According to Yaroslavna, the second rat plague was so bad that she couldn’t sleep anymore. “You could hear them running around in the ceiling at night”. She didn’t expect to have to stay here for three years. She’s now studying at Radboud University in Nijmegen. “I don’t really have much space here to work on my studies”. She would like a shelter where she has more privacy. “A shower that I don’t have to share would be nice,” she says shyly.

Source: Studio040

Translated by: Bob

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