BRUSSELS

The Belgian federal asylum agency has been convicted over 4,500 times this year by the Brussels labor court for failing to provide shelter to asylum seekers, local media reported on Friday.

“As much as 4,832 individual motions have been filed since Jan. 1” against Fedasil for not accepting asylum seekers in the reception centers, Pascal Hubain, press officer of Brussels’ French-speaking labor court, told reporters, according to the VRT news site.

“In more than 90% of the cases, the motions were accepted, which brings us to nearly 4,500 convictions,” he explained, asserting that 5,000 petitions would have been filed by next week at this pace.

In comparison, only 40 single motions were filed on a yearly average between 2014 and 2019, Hubain further said.

Under the law, asylum seekers are entitled to get accommodation and food while their application is processed but many refugees have been turned away by Fedasil because of a lack of capacities.

According to the nongovernmental organizations active in the field, the federal agency gave priority to families with children and first-time asylum seekers, while they did not accept single men or those who already filed a claim in another member state or appealed against the decision of Belgian authorities.

The refused refugees could appeal against the decision at the labor court with the help of lawyers employed by refugee organizations.

Fedasil and refugee organizations have signaled several times that they have reached the limit of their capacities and cannot assume their tasks under the current circumstances.