The scale of the gang wars in Sweden has grown to such an extent establishment media has seemingly begun to realise multiculturalism has ravaged the country.
“Everyone feels at risk,” declared Charlie Duxbury of the neo-liberal POLITICO website on Tuesday, as he reported that a fourth bombing had occurred in his area of Stockholm since the start of the year. In total, there have been at least 134 bombings across Sweden in 2023, compared to 90 for the entirety of last year. Meanwhile, there have been 289 shootings since the start of the year, following 391 in 2022.
“The upswell of violence has been so intense, widespread and chaotically executed — inexperienced teenage boys are often recruited to carry out the attacks — that there is a growing sense here that no one is safe from it,” the establishment journalist said of his adopted country.
While the POLITICO article seemingly sought to overlook the impact of mass migration on the situation in Sweden as a talking point of the right, it did acknowledge that much of the gang violence is believed to be a result of a battle between the so-called “Kurdish Fox”, Iraqi-born Rawa Majid, and a former fellow gang member Islmail Abdo.
However, the Times of London was more blunt in its assessment last week, noting that the gunmen fighting for the rival factions are “typically first or second-generation immigrants who often grow up in the crime-ridden suburbs of Sweden’s larger cities, with little sense of having a stake in mainstream society.”
The scale of immigration to the country, which soared in the wake of the 2015 European Migrant Crisis, has meant that now at least one-fifth of Sweden’s population are foreigners.
The migration-inspired gang violence has become a major political issue for the country, with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson saying: “Sweden has never seen anything like this… No other country in Europe is seeing anything like this.”
In response, Kristersson has called upon the military to join forces with the police in crafting solutions to the growing gang wars, of which an estimated 30,000 people are currently involved, according to Swedish police.
Kristersson, who came to power last year after forming a coalition government informally supported by the populist right-wing Sweden Democrat party, placed the blame for the current situation on the open borders agenda that was a hallmark of the eight years of left-wing Social Democrat-led governments that preceded his own.
“It is an irresponsible immigration policy and a failed integration that has brought us here,” Kristersson said last week, adding: “We will hunt the gangs, we will defeat the gangs.”
The conservative prime minister has also sought to increase police surveillance powers as well as increase prison sentences for convicted criminals, particularly for gun crimes. Kristersson also said that the country’s law may need to be changed in order to deal with the “child soldiers” recruited as armed assassins by the gangs.
Swedish police said last month that “from the criminals’ point of view, there are several advantages to recruiting young people. A child is not controlled by the police in the same way as an adult. Nor can a child be convicted of a crime. A young person can also be easier to influence and exploit.”