Prague opens tented camp for Ukrainians as refugee facilities become exhausted
- Aid organisations have for days bemoaned the undignified conditions in which refugees have been forced to sleep in the corridors of the railway station
- Prague’s mayor has threatened to close the refugee reception centre unless a government plan to redistribute refugees within the Czech Republic is received
As refugee facilities in the Czech capital have become exhausted with no sign of the exodus from the war in Ukraine slowing down, authorities in the Czech Republic opened a tented camp in Prague on Saturday.
The facility in the Czech capital’s Troja district can accommodate 150 people at present, and has been opened in an attempt to ease the crowding at the city’s main railway station.
Aid organisations have for days bemoaned the undignified conditions in which refugees find themselves as they are forced to sleep in the corridors of the station for lack of anywhere else to go.
Many members of Ukraine’s Roma population in particular are currently staying there, with photos of children forced to sleep on the floor making it into newspapers.
Prague mayor Zdeněk Hřib has issued an ultimatum to the Czech government, threatening to close down Prague’s refugee reception centre unless a plan to redistribute refugees within the Czech Republic was received by Tuesday.