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Police patrol the streets after a man was shot dead in a southern Stockholm suburb in September
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- Author, Maddy Savage
- Scroll, BBC News
4 hours ago
The shootings and bombings that have struck Sweden's largest cities have spread to suburbs and quieter towns, shaking the country's reputation as a safe and peaceful nation.
Half an hour north of central Stockholm, UpplandsBro offers lakeside sailing clubs, copperred wooden villas and pinelined apartments.
But in August a 14yearold boy was found dead in the forest here, and since January there have been several shootings and attacks on houses and apartments.
“It's terrible. We were woken up by explosions in the neighborhood and it's scary,” said Anna Petterson, 42, who lives in Bro and has three children. “It is something we are aware of, talk about a lot and are afraid of.”
Sweden has been a European center for gang shootings and bombings for several years.
But recently violence has shifted outside vulnerable, lowincome urban areas. Police say one reason is that gang members are increasingly targeting family members of rivals.
Investigators suspect some of the recent violence was organized by criminal leaders from other countries, including Turkey and Serbia.
So far in 2023, more than 50 people have died in shootings and there have been more than 140 explosions. Last year, more than 60 people died from gun violence, the highest number ever recorded.
“What began as armed violence between gangs of young people wanting to defend their territory developed into a vicious circle of firearms trafficking and armed violence,” explains Nils Duquet, firearms researcher at the Flemish Peace Institute in Brussels.
“Gangs have also become more mature. They are no longer just street criminals, but often also have connections to highranking criminals.”
Innocent passersby are also among the dead.
In September, a 70yearold man and a 20yearold man were killed in a shooting at a bar in Sandviken, central Sweden, and a 24yearold new teacher was killed in an explosion on the outskirts of the university town of Uppsala.
Two men were killed and a woman and another man were injured when a gunman opened fire in this crowded bar in Sandviken.
Shortly afterwards, Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson gave a rare nationwide address, admitting that “no other country in Europe” was experiencing such a situation. He promised tougher penalties for deadly violence.
Evin Cetin, a writer and lawyer who has represented teenage shooting victims and suspects, says boys as young as 13 or 14 are recruited by gangs, often through promises of money and designer clothes on social media.
“Children don't carry their own suitcases to carry books, they carry the drug markets in Sweden on their own shoulders,” she told the BBC during a visit to UpplandsBro, part of a nationwide school visit to more than a dozen areas affected by gang violence .
Others are trying to solve the problem by organizing patrols in areas affected by drugs and violence.
“We walk around and talk to our children and young people that increases safety,” says Libaane Warsame during an evening walk in Jarva, north of Stockholm, on a rainy and windy Friday evening.
Jarva is similar to many Swedish suburbs, with wellkept apartment blocks, a few shops and a nearby forest. The main difference is that it is more multicultural than many other districts and has the highest unemployment rate in Stockholm.
Warsame began patrolling the streets after his 19yearold son — who police say was not part of a gang — was killed in a shooting in December 2020.
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The spread of gang violence to once peaceful areas has damaged Sweden's image
“It's difficult for [os jovens] Sitting at home for hours, with no income, no job. So they go out and hang around and there’s a lot of risk of being recruited.”
He also runs an organization that supports families who have lost loved ones to gun violence.
There have been no fatal shootings in Jarva this year, but many residents say they remain nervous.
“I don’t go out so late… because I don’t want to worry my mother,” says Gizem Kuzucu, 17 years old.
She often spends her evenings studying at Framtidens Hus, a youth center, and says none of her friends have ever had any problems with the law. But she was confronted with the crime on social media.
“I saw a lot of videos on TikTok [nos quais] People talk about crime.”
Another teenager at the youth center, Libaan, says he grew up around older criminals and “committed some crimes” in his youth.
“The kids here are very, very mean to each other… they don't know how to talk about their feelings, so they just lash out,” the 18yearold said.
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Libaane Warsame (left) patrols the streets at night to combat violence
Swedish police do not currently record the nationalities of gang members, but a 2021 investigation by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention found that young people born in Sweden to foreign parents were overrepresented as suspects in homicides and robberies.
The rightwing coalition government elected in September 2022 believes that the rise in gang violence in recent years is directly linked to Sweden's previous immigration policies. Until 2016, the country had one of the most generous asylum laws in Europe.
“We can now see that 'externalism' and lack of integration combined with drug trafficking and organized crime are creating this very, very toxic mix,” Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told the BBC in September.
The government wants to make it harder for immigrants from outside the European Union to receive social benefits and introduce compulsory preschool for children with foreign parents in some areas to improve Swedish language skills.
Earlier this year it became a criminal offense to recruit children to take part in criminal activity. And lawmakers plan to double penalties for weapons offenses and explosions.
The BBC contacted the Swedish government to discuss these plans but received no response.
Researcher Klara HradilovaSelin from the statefunded Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention believes that tackling gang crime “should have been a more important issue” for previous governments, both on the right and left sides of the spectrum. politically.
“There are colleagues of mine who warned decades ago about such a development of increasing marginalization in disadvantaged areas.”
Concern is also growing about how gang conflicts are affecting the country's international image.
“Sweden has always been considered an extremely safe country. Perhaps one of the safest countries in the world. And this image is crumbling,” says HradilovaSelin.
According to a recent survey by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, eight out of 10 Swedish companies surveyed believe that the ongoing violence will make it more difficult to attract foreign talent, investment and visitors.
At the Framtidens Hus youth center, young people have the opportunity to drive, dance and podcast. Former criminal Libaan says he would like a job that involves writing or helping other people, but believes his future also depends on how he is treated by other Swedes.
“I don’t feel included in the culture even though I was born here. They kind of see me as a ghetto kid who has no future.”