Dutch police arrest second suspect after family found living on farm 'waiting for end of world'

Dutch police have arrested a second suspect after the discovery of a family who spent almost a decade "waiting for the end of time" in a basement, possibly being held against their will.

Six people, said to be from the same family, were found living on an isolated farm in the province of Drenthe in the Netherlands earlier this week.

The group was discovered after a seventh person reportedly ordered beer at a bar in the nearby village of Ruinerworld and raised the alarm.

Local news station RTV Drenthe, which first reported the story, said they had "been living in a basement for years, waiting for the end of time".

Bar owner Chris Westerbeek told the broadcaster that he called police after a man "with a confused look in his eyes," with unkempt hair, a long beard and old clothes walked in to his bar and ordered five beers for himself.

"He said where he came from, that he'd run away and that he needed help urgently," Mr Westerbeek said.

Police said on Thursday that they had detained a 67-year-old man who was among six people found at the farm in the rural eastern Netherlands.

Earlier, an investigating judge ordered that the first suspect, a 58-year-old man who rented the farm, be detained for a further 14 days on suspicion of involvement in "deprivation of liberty and harming the health of others".

Prosecutors announced on Twitter that they are charging the man, whose identity has not been released.

The second man has now been arrested under the same allegations.

Police say the six people found at the farm, together with the man who managed to leave and raise the alarm, say they are from the same family. Detectives are investigating their precise relationship.

Local mayor Roger Groot told reporters on Wednesday that the family is believed to have lived for nine years on the farm. "I've never seen anything like it," he said.

Police investigating the farm found "a number of improvised rooms where a family lived a withdrawn life," the mayor added.

Drone images of the farm showed a cluster of buildings with a large vegetable garden on one side. The small property appeared to be ringed by a fence and largely obscured by trees.