As a Zeeland corner, Vlissingen is struggling with metropolitan problems: ‘Sometimes we already find knives with very young guests’

In Vlissingen it starts either the railway line: it depends on how you see it, says Mayor Bas van den Tillaar. Just like Den Helder – which is also struggling with a lot of crime – the Zeeland city is located in a corner of the country. And in that outpost, a striking number of shooting incidents were in the last year and a half.

On Sunday, June 22, it was that time again in Vlissingen. At night a 22-year-old man was injured when he was shot at about fifty meters from the harbor, at the end of a quay with-happy-empty terraces. Later that same day, around 1 p.m., a 44-year-old man was fatally hit by a shot after he had become engaged in a fight in front of a jumbo.

Young people were involved in both incidents. According to the police, a young man called the victim in the port area, after which it was shot. Probably from a fatbike, the police said. A seventeen -year -old suspect has since been released. A 22-year-old man was fixed for the fatal shooting at the supermarket branch. Both incidents would arise from quarrels in the private sphere.

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Possession

Since last year, the shootings in Vlissingen have been piling up. After June the counter is at fifteen. The average age of the suspects – as far as is known – is 25 years.

“These kinds of lists make me angry,” says Mayor Van den Tillaar when he is confronted with the ages of the alleged shooters inside his office in the town hall. Outside, agents can now regularly search preventively on weapons. In September 2024, Van den Tillaar proclaimed a large part of Vlissingen as a safety risk area after a series of shootings. “A very, very hard measure,” says the mayor, who nevertheless extended the measure last March until September 2025.

In September 2024, Van den Tillaar proclaimed a large part of Vlissingen as a safety risk area after a series of shootings

In the first half year, the police and the Public Prosecution Service said to Omroep Zeeland, a thousand people were searched during 24 Control Days and hundred weapons seized, 21 of which during 29 house searches. Both parties cannot yet share what numbers it has been about since the extension in March.

The police most often found stabs, in that first half year. “Sometimes we already find knives with very young guests,” says the mayor, “although you don’t see that in Vlissingen.” For example, Rotterdam is also struggling on an annual basis with various stab incidents.

Conflict

Van den Tillaar also gets angry about the national lists on which people from Vlissing scoring high. Last year, only more young people up to 23 years old were suspected of a crime in Heerlen than in Vlissingen, according to the CBS. Over the same year, the young people from Vlissingen are at the top when it comes to crimes with (fire) weapons.

How is that? Van den Tillaar can’t get his finger behind that. According to the mayor, Vlissingen (45,755 inhabitants) is a municipality with ‘metropolitan problems’. Nowhere in Zeeland is so much poverty. And the port makes Vlissingen interesting for organized crime.

In addition, ten incidents in Vlissingen seem to be related to each other, the OM said to Omroep Zeeland: “It is a long -term conflict in which both groups have firearms.” When asked whether the shootings came from that disagreement in June, the OM does not answer.

Van den Tillaar does not dare to make a direct connection with drug smuggling or other organized crime. He did, however, receive that young people would follow a training in logistics and transport on behalf of criminals, so that they can cooperate in drug smuggling from companies. “I don’t exclude anything when it comes to the criminal sector. There is unlimited money and a lot of creativity. If we tackle undermining in the port, they will look for other ways.”

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Ancestor

To prevent young people from having weapons in their pocket, the municipality of Vlissingen is conducting conversations with primary schools, secondary schools and MBO courses on information and safe checks. This year, two extra youth workers are also walking around in vulnerable neighborhoods. They also organize activities in neighborhood centers and sports halls. If young people hire crime, they can be guided personally.

Neighborhood teams Vlissingen, including local youth work, and the Scheldemond College did not want to talk to the sensitivity of the subject NRC About youth crime. In this high school, a violent confrontation occurred in March between a former student, his father and staff members.

“We have talked a lot and poldered in The Hague, in vain”

For the prevention of juvenile crime, the municipality receives a contribution from the government for three years: three times 500,000 euros, from July 2024 to July 2027. This includes Vlissingen under the temporary regulation of the Prevention Program, just like nineteen other municipalities. Just in time, Van den Tillaar believes, for ‘a necessary repair’.

His municipality is not eligible for long -term state aid to prevent juvenile crime, they do get 27 other municipalities. The threshold for participation is at least eighty thousand inhabitants. “I never understood that,” says Van den Tillaar. “If you look at the relative figures, Vlissingen should have been participating for a long time. We have talked a lot and fooled in The Hague, in vain. I think it is a wrong decision.”

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