Hand grenades are becoming an increasingly popular in rising gangland violence in the Netherlands and the number of incidents involving the explosives has shot up in the past two years.
Violence with illegal hand grenades in the Netherlands is growing explosively. There are an increasing number of such incidents in the Netherlands with illegal hand grenades.
More incidents have been registered in the past year and a half than in the complete ten years before. Researchers call the trend worrying and do not expect it to decline soon. And Amsterdam has not been spared the scourge that poses a threat to its inhabitants.
Broadcaster RTL Nieuws reported on Tuesday that 23 incidents involving hand grenades were registered in the first four months of this year, compared with 42 in 2018 as a whole and just a handful of cases in the previous years.
In total, researchers from the University of Leiden have registered 117 cases in the past 11 years.
In most of the cases the grenade was left outside a cafe, club, shop or private home, or attached to the door handle.
In 21 cases people were directly attacked or threatened with a grenade, resulting in nine people being injured, several seriously. Judges in the Dutch capital said earlier this month that people convicted of crimes involving explosives would face tougher sentences.
According to researcher and criminologist Marieke Liem the Netherlands is facing rising danger. “For example, we see a huge increase in hand grenade violence in Sweden, and there were deaths. Including bystanders. If the trend continues, you could expect that there will also be fatal casualties here.”
The researchers did not want to speculate about the reason for the explosive increase, possibly because of the fact that it may reflect on immigrants, a sensitive topic. According to them, the registration of such incidents by the police also leaves something to be desired, so that little is known about the motives.
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