DUTCH PROSECUTORS are to open an investigation into the mysterious deaths of 34 boys under the age of 18 at a home for mentally handicapped children in the southern province of Limburg in the early 1950s.
The deaths at St Joseph’s Hospital in the southeastern town of Heel were reported to the Public Prosecution Office by the Deetman Commission – set up last year to look into allegations of sexual abuse of children by members of the Roman Catholic clergy in the Netherlands.
It is understood that the commission’s examination of the hospital’s archives found an unusually high number of deaths of minors in 1952, 1953 and 1954. In all cases the dead were boys under 18, and the death rate dropped back after 1954.
The hospital was run by Catholic monks until 1969, and the independent commission has established that the local Catholic Diocese of Roermond was aware of the deaths by the end of the 1950s.
A Catholic child-protection agency, the government’s labour inspectorate and a public health inspector may also have become aware of the deaths about the same time but no action was taken to establish how the boys died or whether their deaths were linked to sexual abuse.
The diocese welcomed the investigation, saying: “We want to get away from any suggestions of a cover-up. That is why we have opened up our archives and are actively encouraging the commission’s inquiry and the investigation by the Public Prosecution Office.”
The prosecutors’ office confirmed an investigation was under way into the circumstances of the deaths but said there would be no further comment until it had collated its conclusions, probably by the end of the year.
The commission has so far amassed around 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Dutch Catholic clergy since 1945.