Described as the worst violence to have erupted in the Netherlands in more than four decades, the riots in Dutch towns and cities this week have become a seminal moment in the country s bid to contain the spread of coronavirus.
Sparked by the approval of an overnight curfew by the Dutch parliament, which came into force on Saturday, violent protests rocked Amsterdam and Eindhoven before spreading in the subsequent days to Rotterdam, The Hague, Den Bosch, Gouda, Amersfoort, Haarlem and further afield.
Organising on social media apps, the predominantly young protesters rampaged through city streets vandalising and looting shops, throwing stones and fireworks at police, and, in some instances, setting cars on fire. In the town of Urk, a coronavirus testing facility was torched. In Enschede, stones were thrown at a hospital.