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As the gun problem in Sweden rises to new heights, Antoine Allen explores why the shootings are getting out of control.
“Actually, our children are dying, and it’s weekly. Mother after mother, after mother is burying her children,” the heartbreaking words I heard from Maritha, a mother whose son Marley was murdered in shots in the streets of Stockholm.
Maritha spends her time campaigning to end gun crime, while her son’s killer is not yet facing justice.
When I traveled to Stockholm for my On Assignment report, Maritha would be the first person to tell me that the main factor driving the growing gun killings in Sweden was segregation, but it would not be the last.
Headlines about serious juvenile violence and gang crime are remembered in cities such as London, New York and Sao Paulo.
But few would think or knew that Stockholm, Sweden, has become one of the worst places in Europe for armed violence.
Maritha talking to Antoine Allen about the death of her son Marley. Credit: On Assignment, ITV News
Abba, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Ikea, Spotify and Vikings are some of the things that come to mind when people think of Sweden.
And the most played Swedish artist on Spotify, the rapper, Einar, could have become the Scandinavian’s next largest export, but the 19-year-old, who died after being shot in the head, is became another victim of the epidemic of armed violence in Sweden.
In 2021, Swedish police reported that there were at least 342 shootings and 46 gun-related killings, an increase from the 25 shootings in 2015.
Swedish police are looking for weapons in a car. Credit: On Assignment, ITV News
As I walked the cobbled streets of central Stockholm, past the royal palace and the barely guarded parliament, the interior of the city seemed as clean, quiet, and homogeneous as I had imagined: not all of them were blond and dull. ‘blue eyes, but the vast majority were white.
However, a short taxi ride to Rinkeby, located in the suburbs of Stockholm, saw a population of recent second- and third-generation migrants.
On the surface, Rinkeby looked like any other city.
Like Stockholm, it was clean and quiet.
However, as I was walking around the small town with journalist Diamant Salihu, I was told stories of shootings in crowded places, such as the village pizzeria, a park in front of a school, a block of flats, and garages.
It seemed that the people of Rinkeby were always a few feet away from the scene of a gunshot wound.
Local people, police officers, and an award-winning journalist told me that Sweden is a segregated country.
Opposite communities are separated by class, race, and wealth.
However, gun crime in the country unites through the driving force behind the violence: lucrative drug trafficking.
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Traffickers, users and abusers are involved in the circle of violence.
Illegal drug trafficking in Sweden is estimated to be worth up to SEK 6.9 billion between 2015 and 2019.
According to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Sweden has the highest proportion of drug-related deaths in the European Union, with 81 cases per million citizens, almost four times the EU average.
Controlling the flow of drugs and money fuels organized crime and violence in Sweden, as in most cities around the world, which have problems with gang and gun violence.
From Stockholm to London, the history of gun killings is not due to the fact that no city is the “wild west”, but the result of organized crime and social deprivation.
Police have confiscated weapons such as the Uzi pistol. Credit: On Assignment, ITV News
In 2021, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said people who “have a cocaine line may not think they are hurting anyone or that they are playing a role in a criminal enterprise.”
He argued that they were the “final link in a chain that has suffering, violence and exploitation at every stage.”
In Sweden, I would find that young people are prepared in bands.
Gangs exploit Sweden’s minimum criminal conviction laws.
This has resulted in so-called ‘sicaire men’ often being ‘sicaire boys’, teenagers who know they can only receive a maximum of 4 years in prison, even for murder.
My On Assignment report took me on a journey where I spoke with the victims of armed violence and the people who were trying to save lives and make the often divided country safe for everyone.
The Swedish government told the program that convictions and police levels had risen and last year they imprisoned a record number of criminals.
You can watch the full episode of On Assignment on Tuesday, May 31 at 10:45 pm on ITV.