Terrified Dutch students made to live side-by-side with 125 refugees to aid their ‘integration’ were subjected to years of sexual assault and violence, an investigation has found.
Stek Oost, located in the Watergraafsmeer district of Amsterdam, was sold to the Netherlands as the dream solution to the housing and refugee crisis.
A total of 125 students and 125 refugees would live alongside each other, and were even encouraged to ‘buddy up’ so the migrants would adapt to life in the Netherlands more quickly.
But students living there told Dutch investigative programme Zembla they faced multiple sexual assaults, harassment, violence, stalking and even claimed a gang rape had taken place.
One woman said she would regularly see ‘fights in the hallway and then again in the shared living room’.
A man told the programme that a refugee threatened him with an eight-inch kitchen knife.
And they claimed they were ignored despite filing multiple reports to authorities.
In one shocking case, a former resident said that a Syrian raped her after inviting her to his room to watch a film then refusing to let her leave.
The woman, identified only as Amanda, said: ‘He wanted to learn Dutch, to get an education. I wanted to help him.’
Amanda described how he asked her several times to come to his room. She eventually relented and agreed to watch a film with him.
However, he soon made her uncomfortable and she asked to leave, only for him to trap her in his room and sexually abuse her.
Despite her filing a police report following the incident in 2019, police dropped the case due to a lack of evidence.
But just six months later, another woman living in Stek Oost raised the alarm over the Syrian, telling the housing association that runs the complex that she was concerned for the safety of herself and other women living there.
But the local authority, which had set up the arrangement, claimed it was impossible for the man to be evicted, the Zembla documentary claims.
It was only when he was formally arrested in March 2022 that he left the student-refugee complex. He was later convicted of raping Amanda and another resident, and was sentenced to just three years in prison in 2024.
Carolien de Heer, district chair of the East district of Amsterdam, where Stek Oost is located, claimed it was legally difficult to remove people from these blocks: ‘You see unacceptable behaviour, and people get scared.
‘But legally, that’s often not enough to remove someone from their home or impose mandatory care. You keep running into the same obstacles.’
In another horrifying case reported by the programme, Stadgenoot, the firm that runs the complex, suspected a ‘gang rape’ took place in one of its flats the summer of 2023.
Police told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that while it was not aware of any gang rape taking place on the premises, it did say it had received seven reports of sexual assault.
Since opening in 2018, Stek Oost has faced multiple similar allegations. In 2022, Dutch TV station AT5 reported that a refugee had been accused of six sex attacks between 2018 and 2021.
He was involved in a protracted legal battle with local authorities, who fought to force him to leave Stek Oost.
For its part, Stadgenoot wanted to shut the complex down as early as 2023, but the local authority refused.
It will, however, be shut down by 2028 after the contract to run the site expires.
In the meantime though, staff and students at Stek Oost have been left exhausted from their experience living and working there.
Mariëlle Foppen, who works for Stadgenoot, dejectedly told the programme: ‘We were completely overwhelmed. We no longer wanted to be responsible for the safety of the complex.’
She added: ‘It was just too intense. As the manager of these colleagues, I would say: “if I can’t guarantee their safety, I’m going to have a really bad night’s sleep”.’
