Red Cross

At least 12 people were injured during a fire in the Heycop home and care center in Breukelen on Monday evening. Eleven people were taken to UMC Utrecht's emergency hospital. The victims sustained various injuries, most of them smoke inhalation related, a spokesperson for the local safety office Veiligheidsregio Utrecht said to ANP. 

The 102nd edition of the Nijmegen Vierdaagse kicked off at 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday. A total of 44,480 people are participating in the four-day hike this year. The first day of hiking s known as the Dag van Elst, or the Day of Elst in English. Participants will hike through the Betuwe towards Arnhem and the come back to Nijmegen via Bemmel, covering 30, 40 or 50 kilometers. 

2,951 hikers did not show up on Tuesday morning - 300 more no-shows than last year, De Gelderlander reports.

Serious Request star Tijn, a terminally ill boy who raised over a million euros for the Red Cross with his nail polish fundraiser, now has his own monument in the Red Cross' new office in The Hague. The 6-year-old boy is commemorated with a wall full of nail polishes. Tijn's parents and brother officially opened the monument by placing the last three bottles of nail polish on Tuesday, almost a year after Tijn's death, NOS reports.

A massive 58 percent of Dutch people are unwilling to resuscitate someone they don't know, the Red Cross announced based on a study by Kantar Public. The aid organization calls this worrying, NU.nl reports.

Less than a third of Dutch that don't have first aid experience are willing to use an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) to resuscitate someone. That percentage is much higher among Dutch with first aid experience - 75 percent. 

3FM's annual Christmas fundraiser Serious Request raised 5.02 million euros by the time the Glass House in Apeldoorn closed on Sunday. This amount may still increase, as some fundraising actions are still ongoing, NOS reports.

The money raised this year is going to the Red Cross, who will use it to find missing children and reunite families torn apart by war or disaster. 

The Red Cross team in Yemen and Dutch TV maker Floortje Dessing lived through a harrowing night filled with bombardments in the Yemen capital of Sana'a. "The bombardments go on and on. It's a massive noise. You can also hear people screaming outside", Red Cross spokesperson Merlijn Stoffels said to NOS.

The team is currently waiting for the route from the Red Cross bomb shelter to the airport to be safe, Stoffels said. "We're stuck here, we can do nothing but wait." Red Cross employees elsewhere in Sana'a are investigating the route. 

At 6:00 a.m. on Friday morning Minister Ronald Plasterk of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations officially launched the national fundraising action for Sint Maarten, Saba and Eustatius, who were all hit by devastating Hurricane Irma last week. The action "The Netherlands helps Sint Maarten" is a collaboration between the Red Cross and Dutch broadcasters RTL, NPO and SBS.

Sint Maarten can count on a financial contribution from the Netherlands to help it recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Irma, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Tuesday evening, according to Metro Nieuws. He did not mention any amounts.

The emergency aid for Sint Maarten is finally on its way after Hurricane Irma caused devastation on the island on Wednesday. A plane managed to land at the battered Princess Juliana International Airport and the first Dutch navy ship unloaded its emergency supplies.

Hurricane Irma took at least six lives on Saint-Martin, the French part of the island that also includes Sint Maarten, broadcaster Franceinfo reported on behalf of the French government. Thus far no information is available about victims in the Dutch part of the island, the Telegraaf reports.

An increasing number of Dutch are not willing to provide first aid to strangers on the street, according to a study Kantar Public did on behalf of the Red Cross. The aid organization calls this a "dangerous development", because in the case of serious accidents, the first few minutes can be vital, RTL Nieuws reports.