What's behind the Netherlands' big explosions problem?

Irish Times

11-08-2025

About three times a night, on quiet and orderly streets across
the Netherlands
, residents are startled awake by loud blasts.
Small explosions have become disturbingly familiar in a country better known for tulips and bicycles than violence. For Dutch people who pride themselves on level-headedness, the blasts, usually caused by illegal fireworks with the strength of a grenade, have created a sense of unease.
'All the windows were rattling,' said Arend Zwarthof, who lives across the street from a building where an explosive went off one early morning last month in Duivendrecht, a suburb of Amsterdam.
In the 55 years he has lived there, he said, he had never heard anything like that explosion. The blast damaged 12 apartments and blew out windows, although no one was injured.
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The explosions have shaken communities across the Netherlands; in the first half of this year, authorities recorded nearly 700 such bombings. The explosions cause fear, damage to homes and livelihoods, and have occasionally led to deaths or injuries.
For years, the blasts had been linked to organised crime and drug traffickers using hand grenades to settle scores. Law enforcement officials say that others have recently mimicked the tactic, using black-market fireworks to target people in family disputes, relationship quarrels and business rivalries.
'It's been normalised, but it is not normal,' said Jonathan Lindenkamp, who was hired as a temporary security guard at the building in Duivendrecht after the July 12th blast, in which authorities have yet to make an arrest or ascribe a motive.
Although illegal, the high-strength fireworks are relatively easy to procure. Rules around the use and possession of fireworks generally are also laxer in the Netherlands – where people spend tens of millions of euros for private displays on New Year's Eve – than in some other countries in Europe, according to Marieke Liem, a professor at Leiden University who has studied the issue.
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Security guard Jonathan Lindenkamp, sits next to shattered glass and boarded up windows in a surveillance room at the Lunaweg in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Photograph: Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
In December, six people died after a large blast caused a fire and the partial collapse of a three-story block of apartments in
The Hague
, a city perhaps best known as the seat of the International Criminal Court. Four people have been arrested and are facing charges, including one who authorities believe ordered the bombing to target a bridal shop belonging to his ex-girlfriend. (She was out of town at the time.)
Later that month, two people and three dogs died in a fire caused by an explosion in the eastern town of Vroomshoop that authorities said was part of a dispute between a dog breeder and a customer.
'It's a misconception to think that this is only linked to organised crime,' Liem said of the bombings.
Since the start of 2024, the blasts have also injured at least 35 people, three of them severely, including one who lost a leg.
As authorities struggle to bring those responsible to account, the attacks are proliferating. In 2022, there were just over 340 explosions, most of them linked to the drug trade or other organised criminal activity, according to police records. That number shot up to 901 in 2023 and 1,244 in 2024. This year is on pace for an even higher total – and most are not linked to organised crime, officials say.
'It's a national problem that has come up in a short amount of time,' said René de Beukelaer, Amsterdam's chief public prosecutor, in an interview. 'And at the same time, it's not going away.'
While similar small-scale bombings are seen in other European countries – as part of gang fighting in
Sweden
, for example, and by rival political groups in
Germany
– Liem said that the Netherlands stands out because of the high number of explosions per capita and because most are scare tactics by regular people in petty conflicts.
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'Amsterdam is a whole lot easier to get around than Dublin ... You get a much better quality of life here'
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For Dutch people who pride themselves on level-headedness, the blasts, usually caused by illegal fireworks with the strength of a grenade, have created a sense of unease. Photograph: Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
'It has become a very easy way to intimidate people,' said Carola Schouten, the mayor of Rotterdam and the chair of a national taskforce on the explosions. She called the issue a 'multiheaded monster'.
Officials said the blasts are typically organised on the Telegram messaging app, where it is easy to buy illegal fireworks and hire people – mostly males in their teens and early 20s – to place the bombs, usually for a fee of a few hundred euros.
Most of the explosions happen in big cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam. But each of the country's 12 provinces has experienced explosions in recent years.
Dutch police said they had arrested 163 people in connection with the explosions in the first half of this year. Most are believed to be the young men who placed the bombs, rather than those who ordered the blasts or supplied the explosives, who are hiding behind encrypted Telegram chats.
In Vlaardingen, a Rotterdam suburb, a plumber was targeted with explosive devices at least 28 times over many months. The explosions ended in August 2024, when the plumber died of what the Dutch news media described as a heart issue. The people behind the bombings were never identified or arrested.
Bert Wijbenga, the mayor of Vlaardingen, said that whoever organised the blasts 'is lying on a beach chair under an umbrella, drinking a cocktail, while it was terrible here'.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times
.
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