A 10-year-old girl from Eritrea died in a hospital in Maastricht on Thursday after she fell from a window of the asylum center in Heerlen on Saturday, a spokesperson for the central agency for the reception of asylum seekers COA confirmed to De Gelderlander.
The girl fell from a first floor window, and very unluckily landed on her head. She was rushed to the academic hospital in Maastricht with serious injuries.
The year 2019 was a busy one for the Netherlands, with elections and strikes, multiple high profile murders and shootings, and a summer full of heat records, severe storms and poisonous caterpillars. Here follows a review of the top ten stories of this year.
Some 16 percent of children in the Netherlands are growing up in a single-parent household, a substantial 48 percent rate increase compared to 20 years ago. Fewer than 11 percent of children lived with one parent back in 1999, and the rate steadily grew over time, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS).
"This situation can arise because, for example, parents have separated, a parent has died or the parents have never lived together," the statistics office said. Nearly nine-in-ten of the 538 thousand children are registered at the mother's address.
A Tax Authority building on Kloosterweg in Heerlen was evacuated on Friday morning after the discovery of a package containing a powder substance, the Limburg police said on Twitter.
The police are currently investigating what substance the package contained. The building was evacuated as a precaution.
A dispatcher sent firefighter equipment, and requested police assistance at the scene just before 9:30 a.m. The situation was escalated to a GRIP 1 at 10:10 a.m. That means that a commanding officer from one of the emergency services takes command of the entire scene.
The first_snow of the season fell in Heerlen and Kerkrade, among others, at around 8:00 p.m. on Sunday evening, according to Weeronline. As the snow was combined with rain, it didn't turn the landscape white and did not cause icy road problems. No more snow is expected in the coming days.
The last time snow fell in the Netherlands was on May 4th in Limburg. Last year the first snowfall of the season happened on November 20th in Emmen and Terr Apel.
The case of 27-year-old Den Haag man accused of fatally stabbing three dog walkers at two separate locations earlier this year was in court on Monday, where prosecutors revealed that the knife used in two of the killings may have come from the kitchen of the suspect’s parents. At the previous hearing in August, Thijs H. confessed to the murders, claiming that he had a psychotic break and that the news reports he had watched told him to commit the heinous acts.
A 66-year-old man from Heerlen was sentenced on appeal to 10 months in prison, five of which conditionally suspended, for hiding his mother's body in her home for nearly 2.5 years so that he could keep cashing her pension. The court in Den Bosch also ordered him to pay 15,500 euros in compensation to his mother's pension insurer, according to the ruling.
The court in Limburg previously sentenced the man to six months in prison and ordered him to pay 40 thousand euros in compensation.
A police officer fired two warning shots in Klimmen, Limburg after being assaulted by two men during a traffic check on Wednesday night. One of the two suspects were arrested. The other is still at large, but his identity is known, the police said in a statement.
The motorcycle cop wanted to pull over a vehicle in Heerlen at around 10:00 p.m. due to dangerous driving behavior. The car sped away, and the cop gave chase.
The names of the ten municipalities that will participate in the Dutch government's experiment with regulated cannabis cultivation leaked on Wednesday evening. In addition to Breda, Tilburg and Almere, which were already known, the other municipalities are Groningen, Maastricht, Nijmegen, Arnhem, Zaanstad, Heerlen, and Hellevoetsluis, ANP reports.
Thijs H. confessed to stabbing and killing three people while they were walking their dogs in parks in The Hague and Heerlen in May, was revealed during the first pro-forma hearing against the 27-year-old man in the court in Limburg on Friday, NU.nl reports.
Transgender couple Kristiana Moretti and Arianne Brink are moving out of their apartment in Heerlen because a group of young people in the neighborhood continually harassed and threatened them. After mediation by mayor Emile Roemer, the housing association offered a new apartment to the couple, 1Limburg reports.
NS is running fewer trains on three busy routes - the high speed line between Amsterdam, Schiphol and Rotterdam, between Amsterdam and Eindhoven, and between Eindhoven and Heerlen. The rail company is dealing with capacity problems because trains were exposed to the heat for a long time on Wednesday and therefore need extra maintenance on Thursday, an NS spokesperson said to AD.
Police in the Dutch province of Limburg cast a wide net to snare as many criminal suspects as possible in a major stop-and-search operation targeting drivers and vehicle passengers on Thursday. Among the 17 people arrested during the day were suspects taken into custody for human trafficking, weapons charges, and drug charges.
One person was found with over 18 thousand euros in cash, and was detained on suspicion of money laundering. “Another driver stood out for carrying a large amount of chemicals used in the preparation and production of hard drugs,” police said.
Nineteen people at the Sintermeertencollege in Heerlen suffered health complaints on Tuesday after a number of students sprayed pepper spray in the school The building was evacuated as a precaution, as the fire department could not immediately say what was causing people to fall ill, NU.nl reports.
Thijs H., who is suspected of killing three people in dog walking areas in Scheveningen and Heerlen, was remanded into another 14 days of custody on Wednesday. The 27-year-old man from The Hague will be admitted to the Pieter Baan Center for psychological observation, the examining magistrate decided, NU.nl reports.
H. is suspected of killing three people. He is facing charges of murder or manslaughter, depending on whether premeditation can be proven.
A silent march for a man and woman found murdered in Brunssummerheide last week that was scheduled for Friday, has been canceled, the municipality of Heerlen said on Facebook. The families of the 68-year-old man and 63-year-old woman said that they are not prepared to handle a silent march yet.
Thijs H., the man suspected of killing three people in dog walking areas in The Hague and Heerlen this week, sought help from the Maastricht psychiatric clinic Mondriaan after stabbing two people to death in Heerlen, the Telegraaf reports based on sources close to the investigation.
Thijs H., the man suspected of fatally stabbing three people while they were walking their dogs in The Hague and Heerlen, is or was being treated by the Mondriaan psychiatric institution in Maastricht, a spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor said on Thursday. The 27-year-old man from The Hague will be arraigned next week, the Prosecutor said.
One of the two victims killed in a stabbing at a dog park in Brunssummerheide on Tuesday was 63-year-old Diny who lived around the corner from the nature reserve. Local residents describe her as a very normal grandmother who did volunteer work. She was happily married, regularly went traveling in their camper, and "wouldn't hurt a fly", people who knew her and her husband told De Stentor.
Former students of Leiden University are shocked by the news that their classmate Thijs H. is now suspected of three murders. The two former students, who studied in the same faculty as H. in the 2014/2015 academic year, knew him as soft-natured and friendly, if somewhat of a wallflower, Omroep West reports.
Police released an urgent public appeal at 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, looking for anyone who can help track down an individual they say is responsible for three fatal stabbings in two incidents separated by over 200 kilometers. By 10:30 p.m., the man was arrested in the southern portion of the Limburg province, police said in an update.
A 68-year-old man and a 63-year-old woman were identified by police as the two people murdered in violent incidents at a dog park in Heerlen on Tuesday morning. The off-leash area is part of the Brunssummerheide, a large nature preserve bordering the Limburg municipality.
Two people were found killed in a nature preserve near Heerlen. The man and woman were the victims of an act of violence at the Brunssummerheide, police in the Limburg province said.
A person walking in the nature area found the woman's lifeless body along with a dog and called police just before noon. About 30 minutes later a dead man was found near the first crime scene, which was then reported in to police. He also was accompanied by a dog.
The police arrested a man shortly before an election event by PVV leader Geert Wilders in Heerlen on Saturday. On Twitter Wilders said the authorities told him the man wanted to harm him.
