Accidents on Dutch roads; seven killed over weekend

Seven people were killed in five traffic accidents throughout the Netherlands over the weekend.

A 49-year-old man from Dordrecht and a 27-year-old man from Lithuania were killed in an accident on the A16 near Breda around 3:45 a.m. on Sunday. Two cars hit each other at high speed and both drivers were killed. The police are still investigating, but have "very strong indications" that the accident was caused by a wrong-way driver, a police spokesperson said to BN De Stem. Six other cars were unable to swerve out of the way in time and were damaged. No one in these cars were injured.

According to NU.nl, the 49-year-old man who was killed in the accident is former imam Abdullah Haselhoef. After the terrorist attacks in New York in 2001, Hasselhoef got a national reputation as unofficial spokesman for Muslims in the Netherlands. It later turned out that he never finished his imam studies. In February 2016, the man was sentenced to 20 months in prison for years of fraud with childcare allowance and other benefits. 

Two people were killed in accident on the A59 near Made on Saturday afternoon. A 16-year-old boy from Oosterhout died at the scene and a 37-year-old man from Etten-Leur passed away in hospital on Sunday, AD reports. The 37-year-old man was alone in his car. The 16-year-old boy was a passenger in the second car involved in the accident. The driver of that car was seriously injured. The accident knocked both cars off the road. One flew five meters over a ditch and landed against a tree. The other went straight through the bushes over Stuivezandsestraat and ended in a grove on the edge of a meadow, according to the newspaper. 

In Moergestel a cyclist died after being hit by a car on Akkerweg on Sunday afternoon, Omroep Brabant reports. The accident happened around 3:00 p.m. Emergency services tried to resuscitate the woman, but it was to no avail. Eyewitnesses told the broadcaster that the woman formed part of a group of cyclists and was the last one to cross the road. It is believed that she did not see the car, and the motorist did not see her. Victim support was offered to bystanders.

Emergency services responded to the Van Starkenborghkanaal in Groningen on Sunday morning after a report of a car floating in the canal near Lutjegast, Dagblad van het Noorden reports. Divers removed a body from the canal later on Sunday. The car was also removed from the water. How the car ended up in the canal is not yet clear. 

A car pulling a horse trailer crashed into a tree in the small Drenthe town of Darp early on Sunday morning, RTV Drenthe reports. A 51-year-old man was killed. A 23-year-old passenger was injured and taken to hospital by ambulance. There were no horses in the trailer. The police are investigating how the accident happened.