Nineteen asylum seekers in detention at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport have gone on hunger strike, according to a justice ministry spokesman, but no official comment has been made about their reasons.

Six people started refusing food on April 30 and were joined by a further 13 a day later, the spokesman said.

A campaign group called Deportatieverzet (deportation resistance) claims to have had telephone contact with the hunger strikers and says the group includes ‘many women and children’.

‘Their demand is simple, but not as obvious as it should be to the authorities: freedom,’ the statement quoted by the Volkskrant said.