“It was an accident waiting to happen.” This is what Jennifer Schouten, the widow of the deceased soldier Henry Hoving (29), said. Hoving was killed in a mortar accident in 2016 during the mission in Mali. The investigative committee today presented the conclusions of the investigation into how the accident could have happened.
In addition to Hoving, soldier Kevin Roggeveld (24) also died. A third soldier was seriously injured.
The report presented today by the investigative committee “confirms what we have suspected all along,” Schouten said in her statement. The committee concludes that there was mainly negligent conduct, but in three cases also culpable conduct. “Maybe if everyone had done their job, the rules had been followed and safety had really come first, our loved ones could still be alive.”
Schouten emphasizes that it ‘feels as if people’s lives have been played with’. “It was an accident waiting to happen. Our loved ones Henry and Kevin and the two boys who were at the accident signed to defend our country. Not to endanger their lives or die due to mistakes in the organization. That knowledge still hurts us as relatives and victims every day.”
In addition to the cause of the mortar accident, Schouten also criticizes the handling of the process. “What really affected us is how we were treated after the accident.” According to Schouten, there was a ‘lack of recognition’ for the case. “To this day, almost ten years after the date of the accident, everything has still not been settled.”
Schouten says that the surviving relatives and victims want to focus on the future, but that this is ‘not possible’ if the Defense completion process is still taking place at the same time, as is the ‘slow handling’ of the compensation scheme.
This makes the surviving relatives and victims feel like victims for the second time, this time because of the way in which they were treated as victims or surviving relatives. “It is unimaginable that Defense, an organization that claims to stand for the safety and care of its people, has let us down so much.”
Although the conclusions of the report help to ‘proceed further in the processing’, the file is not yet closed for the group of surviving relatives and victims. “We want responsibility to be taken. We expect public recognition from the ministry and politicians of the mistakes made and therefore compensation for what has been done to us. And above all, clear actions from Defense to ensure that an accident like this will never happen again.”