| Police officers stand at the scene of an explosion after what is believed to have been a robbery attempt on an ATM, in Genarp, southern Sweden |
A surge in drug-linked gang-violence in Sweden led to a 60% increase in bomb blasts in 2019, government statistics showed on Thursday, as police work to rid the streets of explosives and guns with more officers on patrol.
Sweden has been hit by a wave of shootings and bombings over the past couple of years which police have linked to gang conflicts in major cities, shocking Swedes, who have long considered their country as one of the safest in the world.
Some 257 bomb attacks were reported to police last year, up from 162 the previous year, the statistics from the National Council for Crime Prevention showed.
The agency did not give any information about the types of explosives used most frequently or any other details, but Swedish media have reported some attacks using make-shift bombs made from vacuum flasks packed with explosive material.
The public outcry over increased violence has forced the government to boost spending on the police and to launch a programme to fight organised crime as law and order becomes one of the main political battlefields.
“I believe more and more citizens are asking whether the state can at all withstand the task of maintaining law and order, or whether the gang criminals have completely taken over,” Ulf Kristersson, leader of the opposition Moderates said in an opinion piece in the Expressen daily this week.
The office of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven declined to comment on the figures, which were contained within a broader run-down of reported crime, which overall was down marginally in 2019 against the previous year.
Police have identified around 60 deprived areas, mainly in and around larger cities, where unemployment is high, incomes low and where drugs and gangs have gained a firm foothold.
In November, they set up a task force to fight violent crime following the death of a 15-year-old boy in Malmo when a gunman open fire on a pizza restaurant.
At the time, the police said the task force would focus on getting criminals off the streets, reducing access to guns and explosives and increasing the police presence in affected areas.
However, they said the problems were impossible to solve by the police alone.
“There is no silver bullet. There is no simple solution to complex problems,” Stefan Hector, the head of the task force, said in November.
Kristersson made his comments after an explosion on Sunday in one of Stockholm’s most high-end neighbourhoods destroyed part of a residential building and several cars parked outside. The blast could be heard several kilometres away. No one was injured.
In a separate incident, in June, 20 people were wounded when a bomb exploded on a residential street in Linkoping in southern Sweden.
REUTERS