An Arab gang was responsible for recently abusing two Ukrainian refugee children in Sweden, according to the victims’ mother and police reports.
The attack occurred in the town of Ronneby in the southern Blekinge County of Sweden. The Ukrainian boys were playing football when they were accosted by the gang. Among other things, the gang member shouted at them to go home to Ukraine, reported the Swedish news outlet Nyheter Idag.
The gang reportedly consisted of 12 members who came to the scene and started arguing.
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“They spoke Arabic. I do a little too, so I understood what they said. They started shouting: ‘Beat the Ukrainians, beat the Ukrainians,'” said one of the Ukrainian refugee children.
“I tried to explain that we do not want trouble and that we just want to play. They did not care. Instead, they started shouting at us that we should go back to Ukraine,” he added.
Growing tensions
Two brothers, aged 12 and 17, were allegedly attacked by the Arabs. The brothers say they were beaten with belts, threatened with a knife, pushed over, and punched, resulting in the youngest boy suffering from a broken nose during the attack.
The mother, while speaking with Swedish press about the incident, said, “We are already crying for our country, for our soldiers, and our men who were left behind. We haven’t had an easy life, and we know we are just guests here in Sweden.”
“We are not here to take your jobs or your homes. Most of us already have a return ticket home; we just don’t know when we can use it.”
The boys’ mother added, “Basically, we’re just parents and kids trying to survive. The only thing we are looking for is protection.”
Swedish Democrat MEP Charlie Weimers also wrote about the incident on Twitter, decrying the attack against the two Ukrainian boys.
The incident is not the first attack against Ukrainian refugees. A few weeks prior, Ukrainian refugee women were reportedly told to dress conservatively to not provoke Muslim men.
“We came to Sweden to be safe, and this happens. We thought we would be safe here. Now, we want to move from here, but where should we go?” asked a Ukrainian refugee woman at the time.
“Should it be like this? That you should not dare to go out after seven in the evening because you are afraid of being beaten. I was not even scared when I left Ukraine, but now I am,” she added.
