GANG VIOLENCE
The shooting came a day before Uppsala holds the Valborg festival to mark the start of spring. While police sealed off the streets around the hair salon – and a drone flew overhead – they sought to reassure the huge number of visitors expected.
“People should not be afraid to come tomorrow,” Klarin said.
“There are 100,000 to 150,000 people expected in Uppsala for Valborg tomorrow, and there are already a whole lot here today.”
On Feb 4, the country was rocked by its worst mass shooting when 35-year-old Rickard Andersson entered the Campus Risbergska adult education centre in the city of Orebro and shot dead 10 people before turning the gun on himself.
But the Nordic country has struggled in recent years to rein in shootings and bombings linked to score-settling between rival gangs. Earlier this month, two people were killed in suspected gang violence in Gothenburg. A renowned rapper was shot dead in a gang battle in Gothenburg last year.
Perpetrators are often young teens who are hired as contract killers because they are under 15, the age of criminal responsibility in Sweden. The number of reported gang deaths fell in 2024 however.
In the country of 10.6 million people, 92 cases of deadly violence were recorded in 2024, 29 fewer than 2023, and the lowest level since 2014, according to official data.
There were 296 reported shooting cases in 2024, a 20 per cent decrease from the year before, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Bra).
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s centre-right minority government, which is backed in parliament by the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, came to power in 2022 with a vow to get tough on crime.
