In one night alone “vandals” destroyed 185 glass panes at 70 different bus stops across the city of Gothenburg and the nearby municipality of Mölndal.
The attacks occurred the weekend before Midsummer day in Sweden and no arrests have been made, according to police, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports.
The vandals have become known as “shelter breakers”, according to the public transport company, who say the incidents are not uncommon.
“Unfortunately, shelter breakers are not at all an unknown phenomenon for us, and it’s not uncommon for a big weekend,” press communications officer for the public transport company Västtrafik Alice Roman said.
The damage is set to cost the city around £18,700 ($24,000) to repair. Initially, the damage was discovered earlier this month and only 30 bus stops were thought to be affected but after investigation, it was revealed that the true number was more than twice as many.
Magnus Bernåker, a local who uses the public transport system said Västtrafik should install CCTV cameras.
The vandalism follows the car burning epidemic that rocked Sweden in recent years in some of the country’s heavily migrant-populated “vulnerable areas”, often referred to as no-go zones.
According to migrants living in Västerås, the real reason for setting fire to cars was a mix of boredom and feeling discriminated against by native Swedes. “People don’t know how young people are discriminated against every day… We only get noticed when the cars burn. I think young people are using it as a cry for help,” one said.
Due to the level of random violence and rioting, Swedish police have even considered installing microphones in no-go zones, like the Stockholm area of Järva, to cut down on wait times so that they are alerted to gunshots, explosions, or screams even before a phone call is made to them.
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