Department store group Hema has apologised to a 17-year-old girl with diabetes after accusing her of being a junkie, Nos television said on Friday.

Yosra Aajir needed an insulin injection in a hurry while in a Hema store on the Grotemarktstraat in The Hague.

She went into a changing cubicle to inject herself where she also lost some urine ‘which can happen with diabetes patients,’ Aajir told broadcaster Omroep West.

Police

Security guards thought she was a junkie, took her to the office and alerted the police. Aajir was taken to a police station where, she says, they refused to recognise that she had diabetes.

Her injection kit was a trick to get out of the cell which is ‘something immigrants do’, the girl claims the police said.

Hema chairman Ronald van Zetten said Hema strives to treat its customers with respect. ‘We regret the fact that the impression has arisen this is not the case,’ Nos quotes Van Zetten as saying.