(Brussels Times) About 500 people demonstrated on Saturday afternoon in Sint-Laureins, East Flanders, against a plan to set up a centre for asylum seekers in the Godshuis, a former monastery that has been empty for many years, Belga news agency reports.
The centre, which would be run by the Red Cross, would host some 240 asylum seekers, most of them Afghans, according to Belga.
The municipal council of Sint-Laureins, which has a population of about 6,800, came out against the plan soon after it was announced in mid-January that the former monastery would be transformed into a centre for asylum seekers at the request of State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Sammy Mahdi.
