“A nightmare, hell on earth,” is how Anita describes the incredible new year that she, and especially her mother-in-law, experienced in the Tuinzigt district in Breda. Her mother-in-law (89) is terminally ill. “We watch over her every day. But now we had to flee the house with her around seven o’clock,” says Anita. The unrest and violence was too intense: “We had to pick her up and bring her to safety through all the fire and everything that happened.”
“What should have been closure for her has become a nightmare,” says Anita. “So sad. We couldn’t guarantee her safety.”
Her mother-in-law lives on the corner of Ahornstraat and Meidoornstraat. She is blind and can hardly walk anymore. It is incomprehensible to Anita that she had to experience this in the last phase of her life. “This has nothing to do with celebrating New Year’s Eve,” she says. “It was complete war. Flames were shooting out of the pan and the power went out.”
At the beginning of New Year’s Eve, around seven o’clock, the unrest at her mother-in-law’s door became too intense. She lies downstairs in a special bed, behind the window with a shutter. “But we had to pick her up. There was fire, flames, people with balaclavas and bandanas over their faces.”
“It got completely out of hand. A war zone is nothing like it.”
According to Anita, it had been restless in the neighborhood for days. As far as she is concerned, the authorities should have intervened much earlier. “It always starts small. But now it got completely out of hand. A war zone is nothing like it.”
Around half past ten, Anita and her husband brought her mother-in-law back home. Out of necessity, because she was so tired. And she can only sleep at home where there are special facilities for her. “She didn’t want us to stay the night. So we left her alone with the dog. But the flares and stones were still flying against the roller shutter.”
Anita then lay awake all night and this New Year’s morning she was back at her mother-in-law’s house early. That’s where she started clearing the rubble. Her mother-in-law is in bed. “Intense, not normal. That she had to experience this,” she sighs.
