A total of 120 people were killed in the Netherlands in 2024 through murder or manslaughter, five fewer than a year earlier and half the number recorded at the start of this century, national statistics office CBS said on Thursday.

The annual number of victims has barely changed over the past decade, averaging 127 deaths per year, the CBS said. In the early 2000s the average was 237. Of last year’s victims, 76 were men and 44 were women.

Just over half of the women were killed by their partner or ex-partner, rising to nearly two-thirds among those aged 20 to 60. One in five women were killed by another family member and most were attacked in their own homes.

Awareness of femicide has been growing in the Netherlands in recent months following a number of high-profile murders and the outgoing government had pledged to take action to try to reduce it.

Between 2018 and 2022, almost 80% of murdered women were killed by a former partner or relative, a figure that has remained stable over the years. 

Male victims

By contrast, around one third of male victims were killed by an acquaintance, while 11% were linked to organised crime, the CBS figures show. Just 15% of men are murdered by a family member or partner.

Half of all murders took place in cities with more than 100,000 residents. In 2024 the largest numbers of victims were in the three biggest cities – 18 in Amsterdam, 11 in Rotterdam and 8 in The Hague. In the two previous years Rotterdam recorded the highest toll.

“Whatever policy you implement, I think these numbers are about what remains,”  criminologist Marieke Liem from Leiden University told broadcaster NOS.

“There are certain forms of extreme violence where perpetrators are barely influenced by general measures. Think of killings in the criminal underworld, domestic violence, people struggling with psychosis and murders with a sexual motive.”

Few European countries have such a low number of murders, relative to the population, as the Netherlands. In 2023, the most recent year for which comparative figures are available, only Ireland, Switzerland, Italy and Slovenia had fewer victims.