How Sweden became a 'haven' for mafia gangs and the EU's gun crime capital off the back of surging migration: As murders surge, police and politicians say the nation is at crisis point

Over the course of one night last year, three people were killed in separate attacks across Sweden - three of many violent attacks to rock the country in 2023.

The first victim was an 18-year-old man who was shot dead in a Stockholm suburb on September 27. Just hours later, one man was killed and another was wounded in a shooting in Jordbro, south of the city.

Then, as if two killings weren't enough, Soha Saad - a 24-year-old kindergarten teacher living with her brother and parents - died in an explosion in Uppsala, west of Stockholm, in the early hours of September 28.

In the aftermath, one neighbour described the blast as being 'like a war scene' and 'something you see on the news from Afghanistan.'

The violence meted out across the region in those 12 hours made international headlines, but to many living in Sweden - did not come as a surprise.

In a series of interviews, Swedish academics, a politician and a high ranking police officer have spoken to MailOnline about the multi-faceted crisis, describing a nation at crisis point that is ill equipped to tackle the scale of the violence.

Jale Poljarevius, a senior police officer and chief of intelligence for Sweden's Mitt region, described the 'deadly violence' as being 'very serious' to MailOnline.

He said that although gang violence today has improved slightly from 'Black September,' when a new flare-up in violence will come can be unpredictable.

'That was a bad period in Sweden – September to October last year. Today it's a little bit better, but it's very insecure still because it can turn on and start with a new wave of violence at any time,' he said.

The trend’s not wonderful, but Sweden’s murder rate is minimal. It had 121 murders in 2023 on a population base of 10.67m. That’s a murder rate of 1.13 per 100K. The safest state in the union, RI, has a murder rate of 1.49 per 100K.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/533917/sweden-number-of-homicides/
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/sweden-population/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Sweden is one of those countries that’s always preaching to the US about putting too many people in prison. Now that Sweden has had a mild uptick in murders, it wants to go beyond confinement and actually start deporting immigrants who have acquired citizenship.

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20231121-sweden-mulls-laws-allowing-govt-to-deport-immigrants-for-shortcomings-in-lifestyle
[Speaking to public broadcaster Sveriges Radio, Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer also announced a probe looking at increasing powers on revoking citizenship.

This could entail situations where a person had committed serious crimes, such as terrorism, or cases where a person had either used threats, lies or bribes to obtain citizenship.

In some cases, canceling someone’s Swedish citizenship could render them stateless.

“I myself see no objection to it. But it’s part of a review, and we’ll see what it comes up with,” Strommer told the radio.]

If there’s an entry in the dictionary for “sanctimonious hypocrisy”, the Swedish flag should be prominently displayed as the first thing the reader sees after the phrase. Here we are with Sweden attacking the US for putting large numbers in prison, but after reaching less than 1/5 the US murder rate, Sweden is talking about bypassing prison and simply deporting naturalized citizens.

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