The multicultural city of Malmo, Sweden, has moved to deploy security guards to local cemeteries after growing reports of drug dealing and prostitution.
Security guards are set to patrol cemeteries after repeated problems with drug trafficking and prostitution in the area.
Cemetery manager Rebecka Hansson commented on the move, saying: “They will patrol and keep track of criminal activity but also things that can disrupt our operations,” Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio reports.
The issue of crime in cemeteries in the city is not new, according to the broadcaster, which released a report in January of 2020 that stated members of the Church of Sweden in Malmo had already spoken about the growing trend of crime.
Anna Jeppsson, cemetery manager at Östra cemetery in Malmö, told the broadcaster at the time: “There is drug trafficking, prostitution and mentally ill people at graveyards. It is not a safe workplace in this way.”
Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet spoke to Ms Hansson in January of 2020 and she theorized that drug dealers and prostitutes come to the cemetery because it is reasonably secluded while remaining fairly close to the centre of the city.
Earlier this year, two migration-background men were convicted in a case that saw them take two underage boys to a cemetery in Solna and torture the pair for hours in August of the last year.
Amin El Hani, born to Tunisian migrant parents in Sweden, was sentenced to five years and six months, while Iran-born Ali Jahani was sentenced to nine years.
The men are said to have approached the boys while claiming to be members of the ‘Death Squad’ street gang and proceeded to take the boys to a cemetery where they stood on the head of one of the boys, burned them with lighters, and even made an attempt to bury the pair alive.
Amin El Hani is also said to have sexually abused one of the boys during the torture.
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