Compensation for Prison Block K–Dutch State offers 10.000 euros for Schiphol Fire Victims
By Bart Zuidervaart
Trouw, Dutch daily newspaper, Saturday, October 25, 2008
Dutch version: http://www.trouw.nl/schipholbrand

Sixteen survivors of the fire in the prison block at Schiphol-East will get 10,000 euros immaterial indemnity. This amount will only be paid to those who can prove demonstrable psychological harm due to the fire such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Counsellors of the survivors negotiated over a year with federal officials for over a year.
The fire in the detention centre that occurred on October 26, 2005 took eleven lives. The Justice Department also paid eight family members of the deceased a sum; the height of which the ministry declined to publicize. The ministry is still negotiating with three victim families.

Last year forty survivors were offered 1750 euros compensation, an offer survivors declined. For sixteen this amount is now raised to 10.000 euros. “It’s something, but nothing that excites me,” says P.Sonder of the Kloppenburg injury compensation firm. According to S. de Lang of SAP law firm is this amount the maximum. “In case people think they have the right to more, they will have to go to court — and that’s not easy.”

A number of survivors still negotiate with authorities. According to the federal medical adviser the psychological problems that doctors found lacked sufficient evidence. Survivors also claim compensation for material damage, missing income, being unfit for work. Likely, state officials will decline such claims. In 2006 most survivors got a permission to stay. The Trouw daily visited fourteen survivors three years after the fire. From these conversations a picture emerges of survivors struggling on a daily basis with the consequences of the Schiphol fire. Some manage to build up a new life. Others suffer from traumas. One of them confessed: “Amongst people we laugh, but when we’re on our own, we cry.”