Dutch Navy

The Netherlands will contribute to a mission to protect the important oil shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz. A navy ship will be deployed to the Persian Gulf for six months, to take part in a mission led by France that is set to start in January, sources in The Hague confirmed to RTL Nieuws after reports by ANP.

The mission is expected to cost between 10 million and 15 million euros. The Netherland's role will mainly be an 'observing' one, according to the broadcaster's sources. The mission's headquarters will be a French naval base in Abu Dhabi.

Dutch marines expect that there will be more skirmishes with Iran, should the Dutch government decide to agree to the American request to send a naval ship to the Strait of Hormuz near Iran. Though the Dutch navy is definitely up for the challenge and the risks involved in such a mission are limited, naval experts said to newspaper AD.

The Public Prosecutor is prosecuting three soldiers for their involvement in a fatal diving accident on Curacao in 2015, in which a 23-year-old woman was killed. They are accused of violating service regulations and thereby creating a "life-threatening situation", the Prosecutor announced on Monday.

The soldiers facing prosecution are two men, aged 44 and 51 years, and a 49-year-old woman. They are all members of the Royal Netherlands Navy. 

Navy corporal Iris Homan from Hengelo was found dead in a swimming pool on the island of Curacao on May 21st. Her husband Bart D., also a corporal in the Dutch navy, was arrested. D. is not suspected off murder or manslaughter, "but of a certain negligence that led to her death", a spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor on the island said to De Stentor.

Dutch navy ship Zr. MS. Zeeland intercepted a drug transport of 600 kilograms of cocaine on the Caribbean ocean on Sunday evening. To stop the traffickers, the ship's helicopter had to shoot out the outside motor of the speedboat the smugglers were using, ANP reports.

Three people were arrested. They've been transferred to the authorities on Curacao.

A wooden statue of Michiel de Ruyter was stolen from the Dutch Navy during the Marine Days in Den Helder this weekend. The statue finally turned up on Texel on Wednesday. It is unclear who was behind the statue's voyage to the West Frisian island, the Telegraaf reports. 

Before the statue was found, a Navy spokesperson said that they initially thought it was some kind of bad joke. But the longer the 100 kilogram statue was missing, the less funny it became. "The moment of return has come and gone, so it's definitely not funny anymore", the spokesperson said to Omroep Flevoland. 

Tom Middendorp, Chief of Defense, feels he should have intervened earlier in cuts to the Defense budget, he said in an interview with NRC. He blames himself for the effects now suffered as a result of the massive budget cuts over the past years.

Dutch and American soldiers aboard the Dutch navy ship Zr. Ms. Groningen intercepted 2 thousand kilograms of cocaine on the Caribbean, naval commander Rob Verkerk said on Twitter on Saturday. The drugs have a street value of about 140 million euros

The Dutch navy ship Zr. Ms. Friesland made the navy's biggest drug bust last weekend and intercepted some 1,400 kilograms of cocaine off the Colombian coast, the Ministry of Defense announced on Friday