THE HAGUE: Police in The Hague arrested 27 people as rioting broke out in a low-income neighborhood for the third night, with youths torching a storage building and throwing stones and fireworks at police Friday night and into the early hours of Saturday.
Unrest also spread to a second city, with arrests in a neighborhood of the central city of Utrecht, local media reported. Both areas affected are home to many families of Moroccan and Turkish descent. Hague police said arrests were made for offenses including public violence, incitement and threatening behaviour.
They followed more than 20 arrests for similar offenses on Thursday night. Riot police guarded firefighters as they put out a blaze in a storage shed for sports equipment and games in The Hague. The unrest began earlier this week amid a stifling heatwave in the Netherlands and moves by water authorities in The Hague to prevent children opening fire hydrants to cool off.
Populist, anti-immigration lawmakers are seizing on the unrest as evidence of failed policies to promote integration and call for those who refuse to integrate to be deported.