Sweden Witnesses Bloodiest Year on Record After ‘Horrible’ Spike in Gun Violence

According to criminologists, crimes have become more sophisticated in their planning and execution, and the demographic of the gangs has also changed, with both shooters and victims getting younger to the extent that “teenagers are shooting other teenagers”.

With 60 people killed in shootings in Sweden so far this year, 2022 will go down in history as the deadliest year on record.

According to police statistics, the previous record was in 2020 with 47 deaths.

“This year, we have seen a massive increase,” Malmo University associate professor and criminologist Manne Gerell told Swedish media. “It is an extremely high number and a very sharp increase compared with recent years. The development is also driven by the fact that more of the victims die. The bottom line is that you don't want to become like Sweden.”

According to Gerell, the vast majority of shootings occurred in a criminal environment, and the ways and demographics of the gangs had changed over the years. Today, it has become more common for the crime scene to include more than one shooter and more shots fired. The killings appear to be more meticulously planned, which leads to more deaths, he added.

Yet another change is that both victims and perpetrators have got younger, to the extent that “teenagers are shooting other teenagers”.

Stockholm police's gang expert, Chief Inspector Gunnar Appelgren, described the increase as “disaster figures”.

“60 people murdered in criminal scenarios is a horrible number. In 10 years it has gone from a couple of people per year to 60 — and the year is not over yet,” Appelgren told Swedish media, stressing that Sweden’s alarming increase in fatal shootings stands out both among its Nordic peers and Europe in general, where gun violence has seemed to fall.

One hypothesis is that the police's major crackdown on criminal networks using encrypted apps may have created imbalances and a power vacuum. Another idea is that a series of major drug seizures may have sparked new conflicts and increased debts that exacerbated violence.

According to Gerell, the rise in violence affects Swedish society in general and the social debate, whereas the exodus from residential areas affects property prices. Furthermore, the shootings affect the mental health and wellbeing of residents, including children, who have to grow up in these conditions.

Unlike fellow EU nations, Sweden has seen a rise in violent crime in recent years, second only to Croatia as the worst country in the EU for fatal shootings per year, according to a 2021 survey. The country's Crime Prevention Council called this trend unique and placed the blame on the criminal environments which sprung up because of drug trafficking and other criminal groups, which reportedly account for eight out of 10 shootings. Earlier this year, a report by the Swedish police identified a market for contract killing characterized by efficiency, affordability and mobility among private contractors.

In recent years, shootings and explosions linked to mob wars have taken hold of the news agenda in Sweden. The country's police estimated that at least 5,000 gang members are active in more than 60 “no-go zones” - formally referred to as “vulnerable areas” across Sweden - and named some 40 criminal clans, some of which arrived in Sweden from abroad solely for the purpose of committing crime.

After years of denial and policies to conceal criminals’ ethnicity for “ethical” reasons, high-ranking police officials, including the head of the Greater Gothenburg police area Erik Nord, acknowledged a link between mass shootings and immigration, emphasizing that “basically everyone who shoots or is shot in gang conflicts originates from the Balkans, the Middle East, or North or East Africa”.

Immigration-related crime became a key topic of the 2022 election, with key words such as “parallel societies”, “illegals” and “exclusion areas” - terms previously avoided by the government and the mainstream media - becoming mainstream. The present prime minister Ulf Kristersson ran on the platform of “straightening out Sweden”, pledging to crack down on crime and specifically tackle the soaring rate of gang shootings.