23-9-2023 (STOCKHOLM) A small town in eastern Sweden, Sandviken, witnessed a horrifying incident late on Thursday, September 21, as a lone gunman unleashed a barrage of gunfire in a restaurant. Tragically, this incident left two individuals dead and two more injured, all seemingly caught in the crossfire of escalating violence between criminal gangs.
Sweden has been grappling with a relentless surge in shootings and bombings over recent years, with the situation taking a distressing turn in the past few months, making such incidents an almost daily occurrence.
Police disclosed that among the casualties were a man in his 70s, who lost his life, and two other individuals who suffered injuries. These innocent bystanders were likely at the wrong place at the wrong time in the quaint town located 190 kilometres north of Stockholm.
“We believe that one of the deceased, a man in his 20s, was the intended target. We think the three others just happened to be there,” conveyed a police spokesperson on Friday.
Authorities are in hot pursuit of the lone gunman responsible for this tragic event, but as of now, no arrests have been made in connection with the shooting.
“It most likely has links to the criminal gang environment, but I can’t say much more at this point,” remarked the spokesperson.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, whose centre-right minority government secured victory in last year’s election partly on the promise to curb the alarming rise in gang-related crime, decried this latest incident in the strongest terms.
“This underlines the extreme violence,” Kristersson stated to the TT news agency. “It’s bad enough that the gangs fatally shoot one another, but when completely innocent people end up in the firing line, it’s absolutely horrific.”
The police have revealed that approximately 30,000 individuals in Sweden are directly involved with or have connections to gang-related crime. What’s more, the tide of violence has surged from major urban centers to smaller towns, where violent crime was once a rare and unusual occurrence.
