Police have arrested a 27-year-old man after three churches in Ede in Gelderland were set on fire in the space of one week.
The evangelical Schuilplaats church was set alight in the early hours of last Thursday night. Two days later, a Molotov cocktail was lobbed through a broken window of the evangelical Lutheran church. On Wednesday this week, it was the turn of the reformed church in the centre of Ede.
None of the incidents caused serious damage, and no one was hurt, police said.
“We are probably dealing with a person with mental health problems, or someone with a grudge against the symbols of the Christian faith. It’s sad, really,“ Dirk Duijzer, chairman of the Ede council of churches, told the Nederlands Dagblad.
Nothing is yet known about the motives of the man, who is himslef from Ede.
Ede, in the heart of the Dutch Bible belt, has a population of 80,000 and around 30 churches.
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