The Foreign Ministry plans to investigate the circumstances surrounding the underutilization of government-affiliated emergency shelters by foreign nationals seeking refugee status after none used the facilities in the 12 months through this March, sources said Monday.
Under the Emergency Shelter for Refugee Applicants program, delegated by the ministry to be run by the public-interest group Refugee Assistance Headquarters, those seeking refugee status with no place to stay can live in leased facilities for a fixed period of time without charge.
However, in fiscal 2015, no one was recorded as having used the service. This stood in sharp contrast to similar facilities run by a nongovernmental group that saw a record number of people use them over roughly the same time frame.