The local paper in Alkmaar, a market town north of Amsterdam, has devoted much of its front page to an open letter to immigration minister Gerd Leers, urging him to allow a nine-year-old boy to stay in the country.

The boy, named Jossef, has been in the Netherlands since he was a baby but now he and his mother are about to be deported back to Eritrea after losing their claim for refugee status.
This move by the Alkmaarsche Courant is extremely unusual because Dutch newspapers are usually very rigid about maintaining objectivity, the Volkskrant says.
But the paper’s editor Fred Hoogendoorn said the paper had been following the case since approached by Jossef’s school several months ago. ‘Now deportation is imminent, we felt we had to do something,’ he told the Volkskrant.
Anger
Hoogendoorn said the people of Alkmaar are angry about the deportation and are disappointed in their mayor who has refused to get involved.
‘We think this is an exceptional case. We are talking about a boy who has lived in the Netherlands for nearly all his life… who eats peanut butter and biscuits with pink icing,’ Hoogendoorn said.
An estimated 200 children in the Netherlands face deportation to their country of origin after losing refugee status. Earlier this month, Leers refused to make an exception for an 18-year-old boy from Angola who has lived in the Netherlands since he was nine.