The Stockholm region, formerly a relatively peaceful area, has seen a wave of violence in recent weeks, with this week seeing five major violent gang-related incidents in a single night, including bombings and shootings.
The violence began on Thursday night at around 9:20 pm in the municipality of Botkyrka, just south of the city itself when a woman was forced to jump out of the window of her apartment after a fire, allegedly set after an unknown suspect poured petrol through the mail slot and set it on fire.
The woman was hospitalised with serious injuries but is said to be in stable condition, while police stated that no suspect had been identified, the newspaper Aftonbladet reports.
Less than an hour after the alleged arson attack at around 10 pm, an explosion as reported in the stairwell of an apartment in Årsta in southern Stockholm, with police identifying that the cause of the explosion was likely a hand grenade.
“It has been a modus operandi where the criminal networks go around scaring each other by throwing explosive devices and we have also been able to arrest ten people, several of whom are suspected of publicly dangerous destruction,” Stockholm police press spokesperson Ola Österling said.
At ten minutes to midnight, another suspected arson attack took place in Tyresö, though the fire was quickly put out. Just over an hour later the most serious incident of the night saw a man in his 30s stabbed to death in a stairwell in Bro, north of Stockholm. Police have arrested one man on suspicion of murder in the case.
The final incident of the night took place at 1:43 am in Farsta and saw several gunshots fired into an apartment through a window. While no one was injured as a result of the shooting, several bullet holes were found in an adjacent apartment where people had been present at the time.
Daniel Wikdahl, the press spokesman for the Stockholm police, commented on the shooting, the second in the area in two days and commented on possible links to other acts of violence in the Stockholm area saying, “We’re going to look at it, it’s both about looking at events as such, who are the plaintiffs and what are any connections there, but also about intelligence information.”
The night of violence comes as part of an ongoing wave of gang-related shootings and bombings in the Stockholm area since Christmas, following the murder of well-known gang member Mehdi ”Dumle” Sachit, who was shot dead on Christmas morning.
According to Swedish media, the violence is also linked to a notorious 36-year-old drug trafficker known by his nickname, the “Kurdish Fox”. The 36-year-old, who is believed to be in Turkey, is allegedly in conflict with a gang leader in southern Stockholm and some of the recent bombings have been targeted at members of his family.
Formerly a relatively peaceful area, Stockholm and its suburbs have seen growing trends of gang violence that have surged since Christmas. Fatal gun violence has also grown over the last year across Sweden, with the country reporting a record number of shootings last year, over 60, compared to the prior record of 47 deadly shootings. In 2012, the number of deadly shootings in Sweden stood at just 17.