On the BAG site in Musselkanaal, there is a fight every day, there are regular blows or things are destroyed. Jan-Peter Koers is fed up with it, just like the rest of the neighborhood: “Parents want to solve it themselves.”
“If you make my girl next door cry one more time, I will find you.” A 22-year-old woman from Musselkanaal stands with a raised finger in front of a 14-year-old girl on Friday evening. She came to see her because of what would have happened the day before. Around them are about twenty young people. Two of them came with the 22-year-old woman. One of them has just been released after an armed robbery and is still wearing an ankle bracelet, bystanders later say.
They are on the BAG site, a large piece of land between the Begonia, Azalea and Geraniumstraat where social housing used to be. After the demolition of the houses, it was ‘returned’ to the inhabitants. They were allowed to interpret it themselves.
There was play equipment, a kiosk where the elderly could get a cup of coffee, a race track for remote-controlled cars, a food forest and an animal pasture. The site had to provide connection. But there is little evidence of that four years after its completion. The kiosk is barely open, playground equipment has been destroyed and sometimes even closed with fences. The raised platform for the control of the race cars has new beams, because the old ones were demolished.
‘There’s always a fight here’
It’s not very cozy on a Friday night. The 14-year-old teen replies: “But she was screaming in my ears all the time.” The 22-year-old: “The playground belongs to the children, then you go away.” After some reproaches back and forth, the girl promises it won’t happen again.
Jan-Peter Koers (40) keeps an eye on everything from a distance, as he does almost every night these days. He feels compelled to play a police officer. “It’s always quarreling here.” Koers lives in the neighborhood and regularly sees how the youth literally go to each other’s throats and or work with their fists. For many young people from the neighborhood he is ‘JP’ or ‘the neighbour’.
It is not only youth from the village who come to make a fuss, says Koers. ,,They also come from Valthermond and Ter Apel.” Two young women, 15 and 18, join the conversation. They wholeheartedly agree with Koers. “It is also all filmed and distributed via Telegram (a kind of WhatsApp), ”says the 15-year-old. “And if you fight with one, they all get you,” she says. They only want to tell their story anonymously.
Razor sharp blade
The 18-year-old’s sister panicked after an argument and called her father. The man came, tried to appease, and was hit from behind. “It’s a two-minute walk from my house to the center, but I don’t feel safe on that part,” says the 18-year-old woman.
Sometimes it stays with words and shouting, other times there is fighting. Moreover, young people and sometimes children are also armed. He points to a boy on the playground, he is from the neighborhood and is about 10 years old. Koers takes out his phone and shows a picture of a knife the size of his forearm. “He had that with him the other day, razor sharp.”
No new youth center
The local SP department has been calling for something to be done about it for almost a year and is calling for a new youth center. The youth could do fun and useful things there. Such as cooking workshops or gaming, as was possible in the former youth center Kameleon, which stood on the spot where the music dome is now, in the center of the village. Such a place literally keeps young people off the street and, also important, in the picture of authorities.
A motion from the city council to see if that is possible was passed. But after an investigation, the municipal council sees too few reports of nuisance. Much to the chagrin of SP party chairman Machteld Luijken, who lives in the district himself.
The existing youth center, which is open one evening every two weeks, does not interfere with what happens outside the building, says Koers. “Even if it happened before their doorstep.” And the police? “You don’t see that here.”
The result is accumulated frustration and the feeling of not being heard. The fuse is in the powder keg, he realizes. It’s waiting for the spark. Koers: ,,The neighborhood is completely done with it.”
It’s so bad that warnings have been handed out by parents. “They now want to solve it themselves,” says Koers. “And then they don’t care where or how old those young people are.”