In association with
RTV Utrecht
NOS News•today, 5:31 PM•Amended today, 6:18 PM
Ninety graves were destroyed at a cemetery in the Utrecht district of Overvecht last weekend. It is not yet known who and why this happened. The police have started an investigation.
Yesterday afternoon Lisa van der Ploeg visited her aunt’s grave at the Daelwijck cemetery. She was the first to discover the devastation. “I didn’t notice it right away, but when I got closer I saw that the photo on the grave was broken,” she told RTV Utrecht. The graves surrounding her aunt’s tomb were also damaged. Van der Ploeg informed the police.
At the moment, much is still unclear about the incident, says a municipal spokesperson. It is clear that the destruction took place between Saturday 4:00 PM and Sunday 12:00 PM. Most likely it happened at night.
The grave of Utrecht Ron van Doorn’s father has also been destroyed:
90 graves destroyed at Utrecht cemetery
All kinds of vandalism has been committed, the spokesperson says. “We mainly see that photos printed on tiles or porcelain plates have been smashed. Other glass elements have also been kicked over or broken.”
Not against one group
Devastation has been caused throughout the cemetery. According to the spokesperson, the large number of destroyed graves indicates that the action was not aimed at one person or a specific group.
The police are now investigating the circumstances. There are no cameras at the cemetery, so witnesses are urged to come forward. The contact persons of the deceased will be informed about the situation by letter, the municipality said.
‘Just hopeless’
Van der Ploeg hopes that her aunt’s grave will be left alone from now on. “It’s just hopeless,” she says. “I understand that all kinds of things are going on in the world, but people who have been buried for ten or twenty years have nothing to do with that. So leave them alone.”
