Day breaking in the Belgian capital.
47 year old Sri Lankan Robin Rodrigo has been sleeping rough
for a few weeks now - directly outside of Belgium’s asylum office.
He's waiting for them to process his application.
I asked for the room and he told me right now we don’t have a room
because too much people in this country, then he want to sleep
for the floor.
I sleep the floor.
With nowhere else to go, he waits here, like dozens of others.
Robin watches as every morning at 8.30am,
the Brussels asylum application centre opens for half an hour.
Women, children and families line up on the left.
Single men on the right.
Belgium provides shelter for refugee women and children -
they are taken away from here immediately.
But since October 2021, men arriving alone
are not given housing.
Sent back out with forms telling them to get on an already
full waiting list.
Its Volunteers who provide help every morning.
The guys have nothing to do,
nothing to eat, nowhere to go.
But normally
according to the Belgian law,
the Belgium authorities are compelled to give shelter and to give food
to these people.
And they decide not to comply with the law.
They don’t care.
All the refugees can do is wait.
Like Nasratullah - he was a soldier in the Afghan army before
the west pulled out.
He arrived in Belgium 3 months ago, fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan.
My situation is really bad.
Look at this.
I live in 3 man, 4 man, 5 man, live in this tent.
The weather is rainy.
Our situation is really bad.
After the asylum office closes at 9am, people disperse for the day.
For Robin, his strong catholic faith brings him to Brussels cathedral -
he prays to find a way through this.
He’s not seen his wife and two young children in 3 years.
Robin says, he had his possessions stolen
and that he no longer owns a passport.
I want to move the family.
Then when I’ve got visa then I can take my two kids and my wife.
Then I like to stay here.
I like to help people, but I don’t have money.
But he still owns certificates he’s received from jobs as a qualified
heavy duty construction welder.
He worked in Iraq in 2005 and 2010, in Qatar
and one year and a half in Romania.
According to the refugee charity Vluchtelingenwerk,
the average time it takes for an asylum request to be processed in Belgium
is 440 days.
Under EU law, people have the right to shelter during that wait.
And Vluchtelingenwerk sees this as a european problem.
You see an overall race
to the bottom in the whole of the European Union
when it comes to the common asylum system.
Where every country thus…a bit worse than the neighbouring country
because they want to be less attractive.
So in a way, it is part of an overall European policy
to be the least attractive country out there.
Belgium has a housing waiting list for single men which they cut off
at 2700 names - so there are at least that many sleeping rough.
Many hundreds more are unable to even get their name on the list.
Domestic Belgian courts have ruled 8000 times against the government
for not upholding the right to reception.
As did The European Court of Human Rights against Belgium -
over 1700 times.
We received a written response from
the office of the Belgian state secretary in charge of asylum.
According to it, Belgium faced a 40% increase in asylum requests
in 2022 from 2021.
And that with 34,500 places, the asylum reception network in Belgium
has never been so large.
Quote - "Nobody can say that there is a lack of will".
To support the homeless men, aid charities have started occupying
premises like this former office building in Brussels.
350 men, mainly from Burundi, Sudan, Eritrea and Yemen live here.
Fabrice Dupuy leads a 15 strong team -
and is having to reject around 20 new arrivals like this man every day.
Today we have no free place.
So I cannot put the people like this.
Relatively new into this cycle
of homelessness and waiting,
Robin is still convinced
that his family’s future is here in Europe.
This is my son Kevin, this is my daughter Duksi, this is me.
And so he keeps waiting.
With more and more men sleeping in the passages outside
Belgium’s asylum office every day.
Life's very tough here now, and it's not even winter yet.