Wave of Gang Violence Grips Stockholm and Uppsala: How Sweden Reached a Breaking Point

Photo: Pontus Lundahl, TT / NTB Photo: Nils Petter Nilsson / TT / NTB

At 18.43 on Wednesday evening: An 18-year-old was shot and killed on a sports field in Stockholm, right next to where children were practicing football.

Just before midnight, night to Thursday: Two people were shot outside in a residential area in Stockholm. One of them died from his injuries.

03:45, Thursday morning: A violent explosion in a residential building in Uppsala kills a woman in her mid-20s.

How could it go so wrong? ask the Swedes. Top police say they warned a long time ago. But that they were not heard.

Published: 28/09/2023 12:51 | Updated: 28/09/2023 13:06

In less than 12 hours from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning, three people died in shootings and explosions at three different locations in Uppsala and Stockholm:

An 18-year-old was shot and killed on a sports field on Mälarhøyden south of Stockholm. Children practicing soccer hid in the changing rooms while the shooting went on outside. The teenager who was killed is said to have had links to the criminal network Foxtrot. Then one man died in a shootout in Jordbro, also outside Stockholm. One man was injured. Just before 4 o’clock on Thursday night, a violent explosion rang out in a residential area in Storvreta outside Uppsala. A woman in her mid-20s died in the explosion, which completely destroyed the home. according to The evening paper the woman was not the target of the crime. In contrast, a neighbour, who was not at home, must have links to the Foxtrot network, writes Aftonbladet.

Now the Swedes are trying to find out how they ended up here.

Gang violence in Sweden has reached a new level. And one name keeps repeating itself: The Kurdish fox, a man who is supposed to have ambitions to become a Scandinavian Pablo Escobar. Listen to the podcast Explained here:

Going to relatives

– After the bang it was completely quiet for a while. Then I heard screams, so I opened the window. Then I heard horrible screams. There was panic, horror and desperate crying, says a neighbour Today’s News. The neighbor woke up to the explosion in Uppsala on Thursday night.

After gang crime took off in Sweden, Swedish police have made monthly overviews over the number of murders and explosions. There have been no more shooting deaths in four years, writes SVT.

In addition, a woman has died as a result of an explosion. It is very unusual.

– The last 24 hours are the worst thing you can imagine in an open, free society, says Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer TV4.

In the past, it was usually people who were involved in the criminal environment who fell victim to the gang war. What is new now is that relatives of gang criminals are killed or attempted to be killed, often as part of a revenge spiral.

No possibility to protect

The police say they have no chance of protecting everyone who could potentially become a target of the gang war.

Several people who have nothing to do with gang crime have been killed. SVT has carried out a survey which shows that at least seven of those who have been killed in gang violence in the past year had nothing to do with the conflict. In addition, 11 outsiders have been physically injured.

The wave of murders in September is explained by the fact that a bloody internal conflict has arisen in one of the most powerful criminal networks in Sweden, Foxtrot. The network is led by Uppsala man Rawa Majid, who goes by the nickname “The Kurdish Fox”. He hides abroad and gets teenagers to carry out murders and explosions in Sweden, according to the police.

Rawa Majid, also called The Kurdish Fox, is named as one of the most important actors behind the wave of violence. An internal conflict must have arisen in the criminal network he leads. Photo: The police

Sea view

Police top: A naive society

Gang crime was the number one issue before the election in Sweden last year. The right-wing party, which won the election, promised to use harsh measures to overcome the shootings and explosions. But so far it has gone from bad to worse, and the politicians blame each other.

The highly experienced police chief Carin Götblad leaves nothing in between. She says they saw the start of the problems many years ago and raised the alarm all the way back in 2010.

– We saw it coming. But it wasn’t so bad then. But then they didn’t listen, says Götblad in an interview with Today’s News.

In 2010, she was at the head of an investigation commissioned by the then more bourgeois government. There they came up with a number of proposals to prevent recruitment into the gangs, especially among young boys in vulnerable areas. Many of the proposals are the same as those on the table now.

But many of the proposals were shelved or disappeared after a short time.

– If it had been carried out, we would not have had to be in the situation we are in today. I am convinced of that, she says.

The top police are particularly interested in a proposal she called “project boy”. It was supposed to go directly to boys in vulnerable areas who are neither at school nor at work.

Götblad is now chief of police at the national operational unit of the police. She says that large groups live on the outside of society, but that most people don’t notice it.

– It is only when it becomes so tangible and cannot be ignored that you react. We have a naive society and a naive legislation. Far too little has been done by previous governments. Now there is a lot going on, and that is good, she says to Dagens Nyheter.

Fact

11 people shot and killed in September

7 September: A woman in her 60s is shot in her home in Gränby in Uppsala. A 15-year-old and a 17-year-old are arrested. The woman is the mother of a gang criminal called “Jordgubben”. He belongs to the Foxtrot network, but is said to have fallen out with the leader Rawa Majid (The Kurdish Fox).

11 September: 13-year-old shot in the head and dumped in a forest in Haninge. He was not previously known to the police.

12 September: Man in his 20s is shot in Sollentuna.

12 September: Man shot in the stairwell in Sala backe in Uppsala. He was on his way to work in home care. According to Aftonbladet, the crime was probably aimed at another person, who is related to Rawa Majid.

September 13: 19-year-old shot in Vasastaden in Stockholm.

14 September: Teenager is shot in Västertorp in the south of Stockholm.

September 16: 39-year-old shot in Råcksta vest in Stockholm.

21 September: Two people are killed when fire is opened on people in a pub in Sandviken, north of Stockholm. A man in his 20s and a 71-year-old die.

27 September: An 18-year-old is shot and killed on a sports field in the middle of a football training session on Mälarhøyden in Stockholm.

27 September: Two men are shot, one of them dies, in Jordbro south of Stockholm.

In addition to the shootings, a woman in her 20s died after a powerful explosion in Uppsala on Thursday night. She has no connection to gang crime.

Source: The evening paper

Sea view

– Was compared to the Stasi

Two former justice ministers have also been interviewed by the same newspaper and confronted with the development. Sweden has been accused of having anxiety about problems related to immigration.

– It is clear that I take self-criticism for not doing more with integration, says the former Minister of Justice Thomas Bodström to Dagens Nyheter. He was Minister of Justice for the Social Democrats in the period 2000–2006.

But he says he was compared in the media to the Stasi, the notorious secret police in the GDR, when he proposed giving the police tougher tools.

Former Beatrice Ask, who was Minister of Justice for the Moderates from 2006 to 2014, also recalls that the debate was more cautious about the problems that were seen.

– There were politicians who were out and about the seriousness of this, but it wasn’t quite right to talk about, says Ask to Dagens Nyheter.

She says that she took several initiatives against organized crime during her time as Minister of Justice.

– Perhaps more should be done to deal with young people who commit crime. But we actually made powerful initiatives and it was not uncontroversial, says Ask now.

She says that she doesn’t think anyone ten years ago could have imagined that 13-year-olds would be walking around with firearms, as you see now.

The police chief Jale Poljarevius in Uppsala says that he sees no signs that the violence will decrease. He is head of intelligence at the police region that includes Uppsala.

– Nothing points to this slowing down, he told Sveriges Radio on Thursday morning.

2023-09-28 10:51:40
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