Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport evacuated in security alert; man detained

The Hague: Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport was partially evacuated and one person arrested amid an unspecified security alert, an official has said.
“Police have evacuated part of the airport plaza and the adjacent Sheraton Hotel and arrested one person amid a suspicious situation,” spokeswoman Danielle Timmer said, adding she had no further information.

Television images showed heavily armed Dutch special military police, wearing balaclavas, patrolling the airport which has been on high alert since the March 22 attacks in Brussels.

Military police spokesman Alfred Ellwanger told AFP that ‘around 9:45 pm (local time) a man was arrested on the square in front of the main entrance to the airport’s plaza’.

“The bomb disposal squad is also on the scene and they are checking the man’s luggage,” he said.

Ellwanger added that no flights were disrupted at the busy airport and trains were arriving as normal at the underground station which links the huge travel hub to the rest of the Netherlands.

It was not immediately clear how many people were evacuated when military police cordoned off the area, but Ellwanger said there had only been a few departures or arrivals left for the day.

Schiphol, which lies just outside the Dutch capital Amsterdam, is one of Europe’s busiest travel hubs with about 50 million visitors passing through each year.

Tensions have been high since the Brussels airport and metro bombings killed 32 people in neighbouring Belgium. Like the November attacks on Paris, the March 22 bombings were claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.