URK, Netherlands (AP) – Rioters protesting during the first night of a Dutch curfew set fire to a coronavirus testing facility and threw fireworks at police in a Dutch fishing village.
Police said on Sunday that they have fined more than 3,600 people across the country for violating the curfew that ran from 9:00 pm Saturday to 4:30 am Sunday and arrested 25 people for violating curfews or for violence.
Video from the village of Urk, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Amsterdam, showed youth breaking into the coronavirus testing facility near the village’s harbor before it was set on fire Saturday night.
Police and the city issued a statement on Sunday expressing their anger at the riots, “from throwing fireworks and stones to smashing police cars and burning the test site as a deep point.”
“This is not only unacceptable but a slap in the face, especially for the local health authority staff who are doing everything they can in the testing center to help people of Urk,” said local authorities, adding that curfew would be strict. maintained for the rest of the week.
Sunday, all that remained of the portable building used to run coronavirus tests was a burnt-out shell.
Police in Amsterdam also braced themselves for another protest Sunday, sending officers to a square where protesters clashed with police a week ago. The municipality designated the square as a ‘risk area’, a movement that gave the police extra powers to search people.
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Associated Press writer Mike Corder contributed from Otterlo, The Netherlands.
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