In 10 years, deadly violence with firearms has more than doubled in Sweden with 48 death shootings in 2020. The country stands out, in 2018 Sweden had the most fatal shootings per million inhabitants, compared to 15 other countries in Europe. In Rinkeby, a suburb northwest of Stockholm, 19 children and young men have been murdered the last couple of years, most of them associated with gang conflicts.

The suburb Rinkeby has for a long time suffered from social and economical problems among the residents. In later days the integration has also become a problem, for example, many of those who live there have no education and do not speak Swedish, and thus end up outside society. When it’s harder to get a normal job, it’s easier to become a criminal. Now, the gangs where a lot revolves around weapons and drugs, young people are at high risk of being recruited into various roles in the gangs.

In this episode, you hear the mother and citizen Nasteha Ali, who is night walking every Friday and Saturday with other mothers in the area trying to make the environment safer for their children. They are fighting to make the politicians realize that something needs to be done, but they are starting to lose hope.

You will also hear the area police officer Frank Carlsson, who has been working preventively in Järva for more than eight years to prevent children from choosing the criminal path. He also works in the long term to get people to trust the police and other authorities. In order to solve more murders, he thinks we are in need of some new legalisation that is more suitable for today’s criminality.

https://soundcloud.com/julia-wide-139455762/the-death-shootings-in-the-gang-war