A second body has been exhumed in the investigation into a nursing home assistant suspected of killing several patients with insulin, the AD said on Thursday.

Part of the cemetery in Heerjansdam has been screened off and a forensic team are at the location, the paper said.

The exhumation follows the arrest of a 21-year-old man from Rotterdam on November 17 in connection with a suspicious death at a nursing home near the city.

Since then the investigation has widened and the man is now suspected of killing two more elderly patients. Four other suspicious deaths are under investigation as are six cases in which the patient survived.

The investigation began after a woman at a nursing home in Binnenmaas became unexpectedly unwell. She was taken to hospital, where medical staff said they suspected she had been given a dose of insulin.

Nursing home officials then called in the police. She survived the incident but investigators identified two other suspicious incidents involving the suspect. In one case, at the same nursing home in Binnenmaas, a nursing home resident died.

In the other case, in Rotterdam, a female patient also became unwell.