A Small European Nation Has a Big Explosions Problem

Europe|A Small European Nation Has a Big Explosions Problem

About three times a night, in quiet and orderly streets across the Netherlands, residents are startled awake by a loud blast.

Small explosions have become disturbingly familiar in a country better known for tulips and bicycles than violence. For Dutch people who pride themselves on levelheadedness, 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 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.

The explosions have shaken communities across the Netherlands: In the first half of this year, the authorities recorded nearly 700 such bombings. The explosions cause fear, damage homes and livelihoods, and have occasionally led to deaths or injuries.

For years, the blasts had been linked to organized 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 normalized, but it is not normal,” said Jonathan Lindenkamp, who was hired as a temporary security guard at the building in Duivendrecht after the July 12 blast, in which the authorities have yet to make an arrest or ascribe a motive.