‘It’s Like a War Zone’: TV Crew Forced to Flee Migrant Youths

A Norwegian TV crew with an experienced war correspondent was forced to flee a Swedish cafe after they came under threat from young migrants shouting at them in Arabic.

In a scene reminiscent of the attack on Australian journalists in Stockholm, journalists were forced to stop filming yet again in the Swedish capital.

A crew from Norway’s NRK TV channel were planning on interviewing Swedish economist Tino Sandandaji when they were approached by several young Muslim men who threatened them and forced them to leave and stop filming Expressen reports.

Sanandaji brought the incident to the attention of his followers in Facebook when he wrote, “The more aggressive (people) began causing a fuss in Arabic with the Norwegian cameraman who has an immigrant background. When the menacing atmosphere began to be physical, we decided to cancel the interview.” A short one and a half minute clip of the incident was uploaded to NRK’s website which shows the interview being interrupted by  several young men. As Sandandaji and the crew are leaving one migrant yells  “bang, bang. bang,” an apparent threat to shoot the film makers.

Anders Magnus led the crew and was conducting the interview. Magnus has covered stories in war zones across Africa and the  Middle East but was shocked by the incident saying, “It was scary to be in Sweden for this mission. They are so many and they are going in gangs. We hear the police talking about hadn grenades being thrown, their being pushed, and having stones thrown.

“It’s like a war zone. It was a very unpleasant day on the job.”

Cameraman Mohammed Alayoubi told NRK about his experience in what many call Sweden’s “little Mogadishu,” saying, “the young people were masked and extremely aggressive. They had no respect for the police and did not know who we were either. They threw a stone at us as we stood next to the police. It was a big one, probably [weighing] one kilogram.”

The incident occurred in the notorious suburb of Husby in Stockholm. Husby is well known in Sweden as one of the poorest areas of the country and has an 80% migrant population.

In 2013 the area became famous worldwide when riots that lasted for nine days saw 150 cars an other vehicles set on fire, and a total of $9.5 million of damages. The riots began after a 69-year-old resident of the suburb wielded a large knife in public and was fatally shot by police.

Last year a group of anti mass migration activists attempted to highlight the social problems in Husby when they led a gay pride parade through the suburb. The move was met by confusion from leftists who called the organizers “racists” and “xenophobes” for highlighting the attitude of residents of Husby toward gay people.

When an Australian TV crew attempted to film in the neighbouring suburb of Rinkeby earlier this year they too were met with young migrants who followed them and soon attacked them without provocation. One resident  even attempted to ram his car into the group of journalists who were filming a a story on No-go areas for Australia’s 60 minutes programme.