Dutch police investigating 133 homicides in 2024, Amsterdam total doubles to 20

A total of 133 individuals were killed by violence in the Netherlands this year as of Tuesday afternoon, up 6 percent from the total for all of 2023, according to police data provided to NL Times. This year's total will likely be the third-highest in ten years, with the annual average since 2015 now standing at 128. The city with the most homicide cases appears to be Amsterdam, where about twice as many cases were reported compared to 2023.

"We have no explanation for the increase compared to last year," a police spokesperson said of the national total, which rose from 125 in 2023. The figure could fluctuate slightly based on several factors, such as whether someone is killed later on Tuesday, or if a victim of a violent crime that took place this year dies from related injuries once January 1 begins. Some of these cases will be ruled as manslaughter, and others as murder, with a key difference being whether the act was premeditated.

The provisional figures put the national homicide rate at roughly 0.74 deaths per 100,000 residents based on the population at the start of 2024, slightly higher than the estimated 0.70 violent deaths per capita in 2023. Despite the increase, the Dutch homicide rate remains relatively low when compared against other countries in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

Despite the apparent increase in homicides this year, the total remains below 2022's final figure of 143. Nationally, cases of murder and manslaughter have largely been declining since a recent peak of 264 in 2001. That put the national homicide rate at about 1.7 per capita that year. By 2023, both the homicide rate and total number of victims had fallen by more than half.

Amsterdam homicides double to 20 this year

A total of 20 cases were under investigation in Amsterdam so far this year, more than any other municipality. It was a sharp increase from 10 cases in both 2023 and 2022, and the most homicides in a single year since 24 were recorded in 2016 amid a spate of gang violence that also claimed the lives of several innocent victims. The city has the most residents of any other Dutch city, with 931,750 people registered there at the start of the year. That put the city's murder rate at about 2.1 per capita for 2024, up from 1.1 a year earlier, when also accounting for population growth.

What concerns police in Amsterdam is that the 20 homicides in the city mainly seemed to be unrelated, and not linked to feuding between gangs or organized crime factions. "We are therefore not dealing with multiple violent deaths that can be related to the same criminal conflict, as we have seen in other years, for example with waves of assassinations," an Amsterdam police spokesperson told AT5.

Further, three of the cases in Amsterdam may be tied to the offenders' psychological state and disturbed mental health, and four others have an unknown motive. For example, the body of a man who was shot to death was found in the storage area of an apartment building on Monday morning, and it was still under investigation to determine what led up to the incident.

"In any case, the vast majority of the cases do not seem to have a criminal background. We do see several tragic cases that took place in the domestic/family sphere, or where a personal conflict between individuals may have preceded them."

Homicides in Rotterdam likely down slightly from 2023; Well below 2022 total

At least ten cases of murder or manslaughter were reported in Rotterdam this year, including two people shot dead on a bike path in the past ten days, according to crime tracking website MoordAtlas. That would put the homicide rate in the country's second largest city at about 1.6 per capita, based on its population in January. Rotterdam was the country's murder capital for two years in a row, with 12 such cases in 2023 and 17 in 2022.

There were eight people whose lives ended in violence in The Hague this year, including six who died in the firebombing of a bridal shop on Tarwekamp that led to the partial collapse of an apartment complex. The third largest city had a population of 566,731 at the start of the year, putting the homicide rate there at 1.4 per 100,000 registered residents.

The number of crime-related deaths was down from a total of nine in 2023, but still far higher than the figure of three from 2022. However, Omroep West noted that eight others were killed in the greater region, including two each in Leiden and Rijswijk. There were also cases investigated in Delfgauw, Leimuiden, Naaldwijk, Voorschoten, and Zoetermeer.

Dutch homicide rate expected to remain relatively low compared to all of Europe

A homicide rate of 0.74 would put the Netherlands well below the continental European average of nearly 2.19 cases of murder and manslaughter per 100,000 residents in 2022. The current Dutch total would be between Poland's figure of 0.68 and Slovakia's rate of 0.74, based on the latest data available from 2022.

The most recent data available from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime pegged Vatican City as having the lowest homicide rate globally at 0.0 per 100,000 residents in 2023, with Switzerland at 0.48, Italy at about 0.55 and Norway at roughly the same. Malta, Spain, Slovenia and Cyprus ranged from 0.56 to 0.64 homicides per capita.

Russia scored the worst in Europe with a homicide rate of 6.8. Additionally, Turks and Caicos is the worst globally at 76.6 per capita, according to Our World in Data.

Preliminary figures about murder and manslaughter in the Netherlands this year will be refined further before they are released by Statistics Netherlands towards the end of the summer. Final data is unlikely until the following year. Other factors can also influence the total, such as when further investigation leads to a development in an existing case, upgraded criminal charges, or a new determination about the cause of death. Additionally, some incidents taking place this year may not be discovered until later, for example if authorities discover a body in January related to a prior incident.

Trends in Dutch violent crime show women are more likely to killed by relationship partner

While men usually account for a higher percentage of homicide victims, a consistent trend has been observed over the past decade: more than half of female murder victims are killed by a current or former partner. Over the past decade, the number of female victims in the Netherlands has remained relatively stable, with a slight overall decrease observed in official data. Between 2014 and 2023, 54 percent of female murder victims were killed by a current or former partner, a statistic that has remained steady in recent years.

In contrast, men were more likely to be killed by acquaintances, or through criminal-related violence during that same period. Over 30 percent of male victims were killed by someone they knew, and nearly 12 percent were involved in criminal conflicts. Guns and knives remain the most common weapons used in these killings, with a large majority of male victims being shot or stabbed.