A 19-year-old girl and nine-year-old boy have been shot dead by their father who then turned the gun on himself, a Dutch news portal reported Monday.
The man, 45-year-old Abdel Zainalabedin, was found later in a park with a gunshot wound, close to the family home in Zierikzee in Zeeland province, DutchNews.nl said. He died later in hospital.
His estranged wife Amira was injured while escaping and a third child, aged 14, was with friends at the time of the shooting, according to local media reports.
The family came to the Netherlands from Iraq 11 years ago after fleeing the Saddam Hussein regime.
According to Nos tv, the man was arrested in July for repeatedly assaulting his wife but was released in January. He had been banned from going within 5 kilometers of Zierikzee and was under the care of a psychiatrist.
According to local paper Wereldregio, the woman was terrified of her husband.
"In Iraq we fled from Saddam. I cannot flee any more. So what can I do?" the paper quoted her as saying in January.
AMSTERDAM, March 8 (RIA Novosti)
