Number of Ukrainian refugees registering per day falls to around 500

On average, 500 Ukrainian refugees are now registering at reception centres in Brussels every day, reports Bruzz.

That is a significant drop from the figures for March when often more than 1,500 Ukrainians – mostly women and children – registered every day, with peaks of up to 2,000. The number of registrations of Ukrainian refugees has not exceeded 1,000 per day since the beginning of April.

"Today the registrations are less high than in March, but we must not forget that there are still people fleeing the war in their country and many also need sustainable housing," said Sammy Mahdi, the state secretary for asylum and migration.

Since the opening of the registration centre for Ukrainian refugees at Heysel on 14 March, 33,203 certificates have been issued by the Immigration Office.

According to Mahdi, this decline is not yet a reason to scale back efforts on housing.

"This is by no means a time to stop providing housing, there are still people staying with host families and a daily average of 500 registrations is many times higher than the ordinary asylum applications where the average is below 200 asylum seekers per day," he said.

A quarter of registered refugees indicate that they need shelter. They are assigned by Fedasil to the crisis shelter network operating throughout Belgium. In recent days, however, more refugees indicate that they need shelter, with the ratio rising above 30%.

Of the 33,203 registered, 11,933 people (36%) have now obtained a national register number through one of the city’s municipalities.