Hundreds of Kurdish protesters demonstrated outside the Dutch parliament late on Monday night to call for an end to the violence against Kurds in northern Syria.

The group waved banners and Kurdish flags demanding the intervention of European leaders to stop attacks by government forces on civilians.

The Syrian Army signed a ceasefire at the weekend with the Kurdish-led Syrian Defence Forces (SDF) designed to end two weeks of fighting, after Syria’s government stepped up its efforts to gain control of the whole country.

Demonstrations were also held in Berlin, where Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa had been due to meet German chancellor Friedrich Merz on Monday, but the visit was scrapped after fresh fighting broke out in the Kurdish region.

The protesters in The Hague accused the European Union of funding terrorism, as Al-Sharaa’s government is made up of former Islamist rebels who overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s regime in November 2023.

One banner read: “Europe is now financing what it once called terrorism with €620 million at the cost of Kurdish lives.”

Riot police were placed on standby outside the temporary parliament building on Bezuidenhoutseweg, but the demonstration passed off peacefully and no arrests were reported.

The demonstrators demanded to meet chair of parliament Martin Bosma or the mayor of The Hague, Jan van Zanen, but the crowd eventually dispersed after several hours.