AMSTERDAM – The Netherlands celebrated New Year’s Eve exuberantly. This did not go smoothly everywhere. There were two fatalities. Well before midnight, cars went up in flames in several places in the country. Aid workers have also been pelted again.
At least dozens of officers were injured during New Year’s Eve, the police reported on the basis of first provisional figures on Monday morning. “Completely unacceptable,” said Peije de Meij, national New Year’s coordinator at the police.
De Meij speaks of a busy night with serious incidents. The police were busy throughout the country with vandalism, arson, riots and escorting emergency workers.
The police unions want to sit down at short notice to consider how violence against emergency workers can be stopped around the turn of the year. “We have to start thinking now about how to deal with this and not wait until the end of this year, for example,” says Ramon Meijerink, board member of the police union ACP.
It is still too early on Monday morning to paint an overall picture of last New Year’s Eve, says Meijerink. “But you see, again this year, that the police and fire brigade have been pelted with heavy fireworks. As if some people do not want to understand that you should stay away from emergency workers.”
