Federal agency for the reception of asylum seekers

Prior to 1986, there was no structured reception for asylum seekers in Belgium. The federal government considered the Public Social Welfare Centres responsible for this and paid for their support services. In 1986, Belgium saw a steep rise in the number of asylum requests, owing in part to conflicts in Eastern Europe, Iraq and Iran, Ethiopia and Eritrea, which were displacing great waves of refugees. The federal government therefore decided to set up collective reception locations. The first to open, in November 1986, was the ‘Petit Château’, a former military barracks in Brussels, but by the end of 1992, it was no longer able to accommodate the flow of refugees. A total of almost 27,000 asylum seekers arrived in Belgium in 1993, which led the federal government to open multiple centres across the country. Over the years, Fedasil has needed to expand or reduce its reception capacity depending on the number of asylum seekers on Belgian soil. In the years 1999 and 2000, for example, Belgium saw a steep rise in the number of asylum requests. The year 2000, which also saw the one-off regularisation campaign, broke all records with 42,691 requests.

The years that followed saw the number of asylum requests in Belgium drop back, however, only beginning to rise again from 2014 onwards. The reasons for this were largely related to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Syrian civil war. In 2015, Fedasil only had a few months to double its number of reception locations in order to accommodate 35,000 people. It worked together with a whole range of existing partners – including the Red Cross, Caritas and Samu Social – in order to achieve this.

The number of asylum requests dropped back once more at the start of 2016, which led to a number of these temporary centres closing their doors again. By the end of 2016, Fedasil will be operating 25,000 structural reception places along with a number of buffer places for the reception of asylum seekers.