In recent years, gang-related shootings have increased and spread across Sweden, with police unable to manage the war-like violence that now tops voters’ concerns prior to Sunday’s general election.
“This is my son, Marley, when he was 19 years old,” Maritha Ogilvie tells AFP, clutching a framed photograph of a smiling young man that is one of several adorning the walls of her apartment in Stockholm.
He was shot in the head while riding in a car with a companion, according to the 51-year-old witness.
The murder that occurred on March 24, 2015 in Varby gard, a poor concrete neighborhood southwest of Stockholm, has never been solved, and the case was closed ten months later.
According to the authorities, such homicides are typically scores settled between rival gangs, which are frequently controlled by immigrant clans, and are increasingly occurring in public places during broad daylight.
The violence is mostly attributable to conflicts over the drug and weapon markets, as well as personal grudges.
It has reached the point that Sweden, one of the world’s wealthiest and most equal nations, now leads Europe in terms of deadly shootings.
On August 19, armed police officers were present at the site of a shooting at the Emporia Shopping Centre in Malmo, Sweden. A man was killed and a woman was injured when the assailant opened fire.
On March 21, police commandos enter a building at the site of a suspected gunshot at a school in Malmo, Sweden, in which multiple persons were injured.
In August of 2020, far-right radicals torched a copy of the Koran in the Swedish city of Malmo, which sparked violent demonstrations.
According to a research published by the National Council for Crime Prevention last year, among 22 nations with similar statistics, only Croatia had more fatal shootings, and no other country has experienced a greater increase in the preceding decade than Sweden.
The number of fatalities and injuries continues to rise despite the Social Democratic government’s efforts to combat the gangs, which include heavier prison sentences and an increase in police resources.
Since January 1, there have been 48 firearm-related deaths in Sweden, three more than the entire year of 2021.
In addition, there are frequent home and vehicle bombs and grenade attacks.
For the first time, crime has dislodged the traditional welfare state problems of health care and education, and is now one of the leading worries of Swedes in Sunday’s election.
On August 28, 2020, protesters in the Rosengard neighborhood of Malmö, Sweden, throw stones at police during a riot. The burning of a Koran by members of the Danish far-right party Stram Kurs earlier in the day provoked the demonstration.
“This is my son, Marley, when he was 19 years old,” Maritha Ogilvie tells AFP, clutching a framed photograph of a smiling young man that is one of several on the walls of her Stockholm apartment.
Once confined to areas frequented by criminals, the violence has now expanded to public areas, causing anxiety among regular Swedes in a country long recognized for its safety and tranquility.
Several months after the death of his brother, a 31-year-old man known as a gang leader in Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city, was killed down at the Emporia shopping complex on August 19.
A 15-year-old has been charged with the murder.
A week later, a young mother and her son were injured by stray gunshots while playing in a park in Eskilstuna, a 67,000-person town west of Stockholm.
The right-wing opposition, led by the moderately conservative Moderates and the far-right Sweden Democrats, who seek to oust the Social Democrats from office, has pledged to restore “law and order.”
Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has promised a “national offensive” against the epidemic that poses “a menace to all of Sweden” while defending the left against claims of laxism.
According to Andersson, the rising crime rates are the result of “too much immigration and too little integration,” which has led to the formation of “two societies.”
Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson (shown in the center on 1 September) has promised a “national offensive” against the epidemic that poses “a menace to everyone of Sweden” while defending the left against claims of laxism.
Even ex-gangster Jacob Fraiman, who now helps other criminals escape that lifestyle, is surprised by the level of violence, he says.
“I’m from a different generation, and we had firearms as well. But it wasn’t often that you had to shoot someone,’ he tells AFP in Sodertalje, a heavily immigrant-populated industrial town south of Stockholm.
You used to shoot an individual in the legs. Now, they’ve been instructed to shoot in the head,’ he claims.
Michael Cojocaru, a 26-year-old patrol officer at the police station in Rinkeby, one of the poorer suburbs of Stockholm, reports that he and his colleagues often confront terrible violence reminiscent of war and seize assault rifles, grenades, and explosives.
‘You will witness people who have been shot with AK-47s, stabbed, and who have combat wounds,’ he told AFP.
It is comparable to a completely other society… a different type of Sweden.
Experts attribute the growing violence to a number of issues, including segregation, integration, and economic hardships for immigrants, as well as a substantial black market for guns.
A big worry is also the recruiting of juveniles into criminal gangs, who are not treated as adults if found.
Maritha Ogilvie is still attempting to comprehend why her son was murdered seven years later. He was a typical child.
I have no idea what happened to our civilization. She sighs, “I don’t know how they lost control of certain places, but they did.” ‘And it keeps on getting worse’.