The number of murders in the Netherlands has fallen sharply this year, after a notable rise in 2017, according to website Moordatlas, which monitors the crime figures.

By December 27, there had been 108 murders in 101 separate cases but that figure could still change depending on the result of police investigations, the website said.

For example, a deadly accident on the A10 motorway just before Christmas in which two people died is likely to have been a case of road rage, and therefore manslaughter, the website said.

In total 40 of the murder victims this year were female – all of whom were killed by someone they knew, usually a partner or ex partner, Moordatlas compiler Eric Sloot said. Four of the dead women were students, all murdered by ‘obsessed men’, Sloot said.

Just two of the known killers were women and five of the cases were murder suicides.

Some16 murders are thought to be gangland-related – using the police definition – or 19 if the four men killed at a growshop in Enschede are included, Sloot said.

Most murders – 14 – took place in Amsterdam, followed by Rotterdam with 12. The province of Noord-Brabant was the most deadly region, with 17 murders.

Nevertheless, the Netherlands is back at the same level of killings as in 2016 – and 1973, when the number of murders topped 100 and first started to rise.

The murder rate has been falling steadily since the turn of the century, apart from last year which surged to 158.