Nijmegen

Action group Kick Out Zwarte Piet is planning to protest in twelve different cities in November against the use of blackface makeup and costuming often adorned by white actors portraying Sinterklaas's helper. The activists consider Zwarte Piet in his traditional form a racist stereotype. On Thursday there were protests in Apeldoorn and Deventer calling for Zwarte Piet to remain in the blackface costume seen mainly over the last hundred years, and which some say is adhering to Dutch tradition.

Ronald van Z., a psychiatric prisoner who escaped from a clinic in Nijmegen on Friday, was arrested in an internet cafe in Paris on Wednesday evening, the police said. He is expected to be extradited to the Netherlands in the near future.

Van Z. was convicted of child sex abuse in 2014 and sentenced to institutionalized psychiatric treatment. He was being treated at the Pompekliniek in Nijmigen, from where he escaped while on a supervised bike ride on Friday.

The police are looking for 40-year-old Ronald van Z., a man convicted of sexually abusing minors who escaped from a psychiatric clinic in Nijmegen. Van Z. got away on a black bicycle while on supervised leave from the Pompekliniek on Friday.

A man convicted of child sex abuse escaped from the Pompekliniek psychiatric institution during a supervised bike ride on Thursday afternoon. A bulletin announcing his escape, combined with the work of a specialized police team, led to his capture on Friday, police confirmed.

The most overcrowded train in the country runs between Oss and 's-Hertogenbosch Oost, according to NS. This sprinter that departs at 7:43 a.m. is around 40 percent more crowded than the maximum capacity of the train every day, with the exception of the weekend. The train that runs on this rout at 8:31 a.m. is also very popular, running at 28 percent over capacity every day, NOS reports.

The 103rd edition of the Nijmegen Vierdaagse, known as the Four Day Marches in English, kicked off with 44,702 participants at 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning. On the first leg of the four-day walking event, participants will walk from Nijmegen  through the Betuwe to Arnhem, NU.nl reports.

Motorists in The Hague face the most delays due to traffic jams in the Netherlands, according to calculations by navigation system maker TomTom. In The Hague, motorists on average have to take 28 percent extra travel time into account, Hart van Nederland reports.

That means that a trip that should take an hour, on average takes Hague motorists an hour and 17 minutes. During evening rush hour, a one-hour ride takes almost 40 minutes longer. In one year, the average motorist in The Hague loses 130 hours in traffic.

An explosion on a train in Nijmegen on Sunday, in which one man was killed, was caused by firework bombs that the victim took with him to take his own life, multiple independent sources told De Gelderlander.

One person was killed in an explosion on a passenger train car in Nijmegen on Sunday morning. There were no passengers on the train at the time, which was sitting idle in a rail yard at the time of the powerful blast, police said.

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Witness accounts suggest that parts of the train came to rest dozens of meters away from the affected train car. Crime is not suspected in the incident, which took place around 9:45 a.m.

A cruise ship collided with a cargo ship, loaded with cars, on the Waal river near Nijmegen at around 4:00 a.m. on Wednesday. The passengers were all shaken, but unharmed, according to local safety office Veiligheidsregio Gelderland-Zuid. Public works service Rijkswaterstaat and the fire department evacuated the cruise ship, ANP reports. 

State Secretary Mark Harbers of Justice and Security stripped 37-year-old Outhmane B. of his Dutch nationality. B. traveled to Syria with his family in 2014 and followed jihadist training courses there. He was put on the national terrorism list in 2016, De Gelderlander reports.

According to the newspaper, B. lost his Dutch nationality because he "joined an organization that participates in a national or international armed conflict and poses a threat to national security". The man can appeal against the decision.