- Gun crime in Sweden is increasing faster than anywhere else in Europe.
- 47 people have been killed in shootings across the country so far this year.
- Polls show that crime is one of the top concerns for voters ahead of Sunday’s election.
A surge in gun violence and gang crime has emerged as a major issue in what Swedish media have dubbed one of the ugliest election campaigns in history.
“Right at this spot here we had a shooting about this time last year,” says Martin Gunér, a police officer in Gottsunda, a 15-minute drive from the mediaeval spires of Uppsala’s university city.
Gottsunda is notorious for drug and gun battles, and police have named it one of Sweden’s top ten most dangerous neighbourhoods.
Despite being labelled a “no-go zone” by Sweden’s right-wing media, parents here cycle their toddlers home from preschool, while middle-class families at the local shopping centre load groceries into electric cars and bicycle baskets.
In recent months, some high-profile arrests in the area have helped to calm the violence. However, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention’s 2021 report, gun crime in Sweden is increasing faster than anywhere else in Europe.
So far this year, 47 people have been killed in shootings across the country, which is more than the entire year of 2021.
“At first they’d shoot just to injure and make people afraid, but now they’re shooting to kill,” Mr Gunér says.
The violence is now spreading beyond troubled suburbs and into other cities: last month, a mother and her five-year-old child were shot at a playground in Eskilstuna’s central city, and two people were injured in a shooting at one of Scandinavia’s largest shopping malls in Malmö.
As Swedes prepare for Sunday’s general election, polls show that crime is one of the top concerns for voters.
“[Crime] beats questions relating to the environment and inflation, the economy and the pandemic,” says Sten Widmalm, a professor at Uppsala University. “It’s affecting ordinary people as well, because some of these shootings have led to innocent bystanders being killed.”
It’s not surprising, then, that the campaign has been dominated by the debate over what’s causing the increase in gang violence and how to stop it.
Nikoi Djane grew up in southern Sweden among gangs and is now a criminologist. He blames a growing drug market and a lack of job opportunities for those who live in less affluent areas.
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