A woman in her 60s was found dead after a shooting in Akalla, a suburb in northern Stockholm. The victim, according to Swedish media, is the mother of a known gang criminal, raising fears of revenge attacks as gang conflicts continue to spiral.
The shooting occurred around 7 p.m. on Tuesday when police were alerted to a residential building in the area. Upon arrival, they found the woman dead from gunshot wounds. While the police have launched a murder investigation, no arrests have yet been made.
“There is a lot at stake here to prevent further escalation,” warned SVT crime reporter Diamant Salihu. He noted that threats against relatives of gang members are common, and the authorities fear acts of retaliatory violence.
Last year, the mother of a gang leader, Ismael Abdo, was shot dead in Uppsala, triggering a wave of gang-related murders.
Sweden is grappling with a record number of violent incidents in 2023, many of which are connected to the rise of migrant crime gangs and the subsequent turf wars in the Scandinavian country’s major cities.
Just yesterday, Remix News reported on the alarming rise in the use of hand grenades by criminal gangs, with the number of explosions more than doubling in 2024 compared to last year.
By mid-October, there had been 22 recorded grenade attacks, up from nine in 2023, according to figures from the Police National Bomb Data Centre, while 30 hand grenades have been seized by officials at Sweden’s borders compared to zero last year.
Gang warfare has spun out of control, with shootings becoming a regular part of life in several Swedish cities. Often, the victims and perpetrators are tied to organized crime, with innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire.
In some cases, minors, many of whom are below the age of criminal responsibility, are being used to commit horrific acts of violence.
One typical example occurred earlier this month when a teenager was arrested and accused of shooting dead a man in his 50s in Malmö in what police believed was a case of mistaken identity.
Similarly in May, an 18-year-old Iraqi migrant was detained on suspicion of murdering Mikael Janicki, a Polish national who was shot dead in front of his 12-year-old son as they were cycling towards a swimming pool in southern Stockholm.
Swedish authorities are under immense pressure to stem the tide of gang-related violence, and the center-right government, propped up by the populist Sweden Democrats, has introduced tougher laws, including harsher penalties for suspects linked to organized crime.
