Swedish police in the city of Uppsala have warned women walking alone at night to avoid certain areas entirely after the city saw four sex attacks in as many days.
Between August 3rd and August 7th, four women were sexually attacked by unknown perpetrators with two of the attacks resulting in rape, while the remaining two others were attempted rapes, Swedish newspaper Expressen reports.
On Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning, police were alerted to a rape attempt in the centre of the city with a woman claiming that a random stranger grabbed her inappropriately and then ran off after she fell to the ground.
Police officer Linda Winge said the attack appeared totally random and that so far they had no located a suspect in the case.
Mikael Hedström, a press spokesman for the Uppsala police, said that women and men should be more cautious alone at night.
“Women in town should not be worried but must think about how to behave. Perpetrators are looking for solitary men and women, so it is important how they move,” he said.
“Feel free to walk on illuminated streets and not alone in alleys or parks,” he added and recommended people talk to friends on the way home or travel with others.
“We take security-creating measures, but we cannot be in all places. Both men and women have to think ahead,” he said.
According to a report by Swedish broadcaster SVT last year, the vast majority of rape cases involving strangers are committed by migrants with migrants making up 85 per cent of assault rapes involving cases where the victim and rapist were not acquainted with one another.
Among those cases, around half involved migrants who had been living in Sweden for less than a year before the incident took place.
A report from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) released earlier this year revealed that the overall number of rape cases had increased by eight per cent last year and 33 per cent over the last decade.
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