A surge in gang violence during a brutal summer spells trouble for the ruling parties.
A person dressed all in black hurled a hand grenade into a shop in the crime-ridden suburb of Geneta in the Swedish city of on Södertälje on July 22. Several bystanders were injured and one woman in her 50s had to be airlifted to the hospital.
Only a day later, a man was shot and injured on a street nearby.
The spate of gang violence is all part of a brutal summer that spells trouble for Sweden’s government.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and his right-wing allies edged an election two years ago promising to end a decade of spiraling clashes between drug runners.
But the crime statistics make for chilling reading in a country of 10.5 million whose international image is one of a peaceful, successful nation with a competitive economy and strong welfare protections.
There were 103 murders in Greater London last year, which also has a population of just under 10 million and of course is a dense urban environment with a lot of inequality. Of those, 67 were stabbed and only 8 were shot.
Bomb/grenade attacks are almost unheard of in the UK, outside of terrorist incidents.
I don’t mean to attack Sweden which is an admirable country in many ways, and I wish the UK would adopt many of its policies. It’s precisely because it’s such a well run country that the increase in violent crime is so shocking