On Friday, May 21, while walking her dog, 27-year-old Amanda from Umeå, Sweden, was beaten by a group of young men she believes were foreigners, Samnytt reported. Later speaking about the incident, she said she hopes that the culprits will be arrested so that no one is hurt again.
On the day of the incident, around 9:00 p.m., Amanda went for a walk with one of her dogs. Usually, she takes both her dogs, but that evening, she left her large dog, a German Shepherd, at home and went out only with her small dog.
As Amanda walked the pedestrian and cycle lane past Mariehem’s water tower in Umeå, she met a group of four young men in their twenties.
“What are you looking at?” said the second man from the left to Amanda.
“I ignored them and did not answer. They lined up and blocked the way and didn’t move, so I had to go into the woods to get around them. And the moment I passed them, one of them turned. I could hear him come towards me, and then he kicked me. Then, I don’t remember much,” described Amanda regarding the events of that evening.
Amanda fell and banged her head against a rock so hard that she passed out. When she came back to consciousness, she was alone, and her terrified dog ran around her. She doesn’t know how long she was unconscious, but she thinks it was 10 to 15 minutes. The group of men was no longer around.
“Maybe they didn’t want me to fall. But I hadn’t told them anything, and I hadn’t provoked them at all,” added Amanda.
After the incident, Amanda returned home and took a taxi to her relative’s house.
According to Amanda, the four men had brown hair, were between 175 and 180 centimeters tall, wore dark clothing, and were of foreign origin.
“They spoke Swedish, but there were some slang expressions. They said things like “ey, bro” and things like that. I noticed that they looked foreign, but maybe they were born in Sweden,” Amanda said.
She believes they were from the Middle East but says she is not sure. She had not met any of the men before.
Samnytt news outlet has been in contact with the Västerbotten area police, who confirmed that they have received a police report and that an investigator is working on the case. Over the weekend, Amanda also went to the hospital to have her injuries checked.
Since Friday night’s assault, Amanda has been staying indoors at night. She says that she no longer goes out without her dogs.
Numerous Swedish women have been the targets of attacks from migrants or those with a migration background, which is reflected in sexual assault statistics as well as physical assaults, with 2020 seeing more lethal violence than at any point the country’s modern history.
Title image: In this Aug. 30, 2018 photo migrant pupils walk under a railway bridge In Flen, some 100 km west of Stockholm, Sweden. The town has welcomed so many asylum seekers in recent years that they now make up about a fourth of the population. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
