The Kingdom of Sweden continues to suffer the violence of a persistent gang war. On the night of Wednesday September 27 to Thursday September 28, 2023, three people died from gunfire and an explosion. Sweden now faces almost daily casualties.
According to Swedish police, the first gun attack took place in an affluent suburb south of Stockholm shortly before 7 p.m. on Wednesday. A young man was shot and killed near a sports field, where training with children was taking place. A homicide investigation has been opened.
“Innocent people with no links to organized crime, including several children who came to their training, were forced to witness once again a merciless shooting during which a man was shot dead,” reacted the Prime Minister, Ulf. Kristersson, with the TV4 channel. These mindless killers will not stop shooting themselves and others until we stop them. » Another attack took place a few hours later in another suburb of Stockholm, injuring two people, one of whom died of his injuries, according to Swedish police. Three men were arrested.
Finally, during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, an explosion took place in the suburbs of the university town of Uppsala, which caused the death of a 25-year-old young woman. Five houses were damaged, the police added on their website. The Swedish Prime Minister had denounced, from the start of 2023, an “uncontrollable” situation, which, according to him, risked “getting worse before it gets better”.
An unprecedented wave of violence
This summer, the Swedish police still feared a new wave of recruitment of young people by criminal groups operating in working-class neighborhoods. A true scourge that has shaken the kingdom for more than a decade, clashes between rival gangs are at the origin of the majority of the 172 firearm incidents recorded in recent years, which have already left twenty-one dead and fifty-three injured since January, and around sixty deaths in 2022.
A fight between two criminal gangs for control of drug trafficking is shaking the country, which is struggling to stem the phenomenon. According to figures from the public television channel SVT, eleven deaths were counted in September, the deadliest month in four years.
Younger and younger suspects
The perpetrators of these deadly attacks are increasingly younger, and the collateral victims have become more numerous in recent weeks. In mid-January 2023, police revealed that half of those detained in ongoing cases in Stockholm were under the age of 18, while prosecutors noted an increase in the number of 15- to 17-year-olds being prosecuted for murder, attempted murder or complicity, over the last two years. According to Carin Götblad, the head of the national police operational unit, some suspects are as young as 13 years old.
Among the hypotheses mentioned to explain this trend: the elimination of sentence reductions for young people aged 18 to 20, which came into force in January 2022. The gangs would now use minors, who risk a maximum of four years of detention in a prison. closed center.