A surge in gang violence during a brutal summer spells trouble for the ruling parties.
A person dressed all in black hurled a hand grenade into a shop in the crime-ridden suburb of Geneta in the Swedish city of on Södertälje on July 22. Several bystanders were injured and one woman in her 50s had to be airlifted to the hospital.
Only a day later, a man was shot and injured on a street nearby.
The spate of gang violence is all part of a brutal summer that spells trouble for Sweden’s government.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and his right-wing allies edged an election two years ago promising to end a decade of spiraling clashes between drug runners.
But the crime statistics make for chilling reading in a country of 10.5 million whose international image is one of a peaceful, successful nation with a competitive economy and strong welfare protections.
Swede here.
While the current situation is bad, I don’t know anyone that knows anyone who has been involved or seen any acts of violence like gang shootings and such.
I’m not in any way saying that the problem is not serious, because it is. I’m just saying that media and Facebook often makes it sound like Sweden is in a state of the Mad Max universe. It’s not.
The cause(s) have most likely roots in things that started 20-30 years ago. It had time to spread and dig roots deep down.
While I’m not a fan of it current government and their actions on this matter, it is naive to think that the actions of the current government would show sufficient effects in just 2-3 years.
Thanks for the first hand account. It sounds just like how crime in the US is sensationally portrayed. The reality is even in some of our worst cities like Chicago, violent crime is usually between criminals themselves and usually within a few neighborhoods that everyone else avoids. Your average middle class family in the suburbs isn’t really affected.
Yeah idk, I have family in Helsinborg. A car bomb outside elderly relatives flat - in a nice part of a nice town - someone shot dead in another relative’s street, the police station was attacked with a hand grenade… Last year when we arrived to visit a main shopping street was blocked off after a bombing in a flat. Yeah it’s still a nice country and I haven’t literally witnessed any of these incidents, but criminal violence honestly feels closer there than at home in London
I’m sorry that you had the experience all of that.
In Sweden there were 121 cases of violence with deadly outcome. There is around 10 million people living in Sweden.
Now, a grenade or a car bomb doesn’t mean that people are getting killed. Injured people wouldn’t end up among those 121 that did die in 2023. A bomb is always a great risk of people getting hurt and killed of course. Oh the 121 that died, 53 of those were shot and 41 got stabbed by knife.
With that said, I’m really sorry that you had to experience all of that you wrote but rest assured, your experience doesn’t represent the norm.
Hopefully we can get the shit to calm down like we did in the 90’s. Hells Angels were at war with Bandidos then. Bombs and shootings then too.
There were 103 murders in Greater London last year, which also has a population of just under 10 million and of course is a dense urban environment with a lot of inequality. Of those, 67 were stabbed and only 8 were shot.
Bomb/grenade attacks are almost unheard of in the UK, outside of terrorist incidents.
I don’t mean to attack Sweden which is an admirable country in many ways, and I wish the UK would adopt many of its policies. It’s precisely because it’s such a well run country that the increase in violent crime is so shocking
Yeah, that happens to the United States as well. Sweden is still a very safe country, it’s just not quite as safe as it used to be in certain areas.
The thing that makes me scratch my head is all the grenade attacks. Those are exceedingly rare in the United States. Is this a language thing? When I read “grenade” I think of a handheld military explosive device. Is that what they are actually referring to or does your media refer to any portable / throwable explosive device as a “grenade”?
No it’s literally grenades. They also use IEDs to blow rival members house up.
Guess explosives are easier to hit with.
Literally hand grenades. Usually imported from Balkan if I’m not mistaken. I read an article a couple of years ago where someone involved in the illegal weapons trade said that you sometimes get complementary grenades when you buy guns and ammunition. If that’s true it’s really wild.
I have the exact same experience, though I think it might differ if you’re not white and/or middle class.
I’ve heard people make comparisons to the situation in the US in the ‘80’s, for mostly the same reasons (rapidly expanding inequality that follows particularly racialised lines and ensures many primarily racialised people have very low social mobility in combination with rapidly increasing demand for eg cocaine and other street drugs and a general culture that glamorises individual wealth). I don’t know enough to wholeheartedly present that as the definite description, but it does fit what little I’ve seen and experienced.
Also, to give some more horrendous flavour to the situation, there’s an active political discussion of how to adapt jails for the unprecedented number of children they’ve started jailing (probably in violation of international conventions).