- Title: SWEDEN-GRENADES/MALMO Grenade attacks shatter Swedish sense of safety
- Date: 10th August 2015
- Summary: MALMO, SWEDEN (RECENT - AUGUST 4, 2015) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF BUILDING HOUSING NEWSPAPER SYDSVENSKAN SYDSVENSKAN LOGO SYDSVENSKAN JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR, JOAKIM PALMKVIST, READING NEWSPAPER NEWSPAPER / MAP OF MALMO WITH INCIDENTS MARKED OUT (SOUNDBITE) (English) SYDSVENSKAN JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR, JOAKIM PALMKVIST, SAYING: "My take on the situation is that there are several
- Embargoed: 25th August 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Sweden
- Country: Sweden
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVAEKENTCRMXXK5FQ60FM9T9K2IK
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A grenade exploded in the western port city of Malmo late on Sunday (August 9) - the latest in a dozen grenade attacks in the past few months.
The detonation in a residential area near the town centre caused damage to a building but no injuries.
Malmo police officer Hakan Johansson said it was sheer luck that there had been no injuries.
"At the place it was detonated, there was a great risk, a very great risk. Many people are moving about in the area, the weather is nice and it wasn't that late. There are many people moving around here so you have to say that the risk has been great and only luck that nobody was hurt," he said.
Johansson said the attack was somewhat different than previous ones as the grenade was detonated at a time and place when people were out and about.
"We've seen before that it has been done in a different way. But now it seems.. it's more dangerous, in an area where more people can get hurt and what we can see, sometimes there doesn't seem to be a reason to do it," he said.
The attacks, as well as other bombs placed in cars and parks, have wounded two people this year but not killed anyone. The pattern of targets - from flats to offices and one building housing a Ramadan celebration - appears random. No one has been arrested.
The best guess, experts say, is a gang turf war.
"My take on the situation is that there are several conflicts going on at the same time. It's all based on ten to twenty years history of organised crime in the city where we are now seeing a third wave of gangs coming up, trying to find a position, trying to find a way of earning money or getting power," said Joakim Palmkvist, a local Swedish journalist and author of Mafia War.
The incidents have focused attention on gang-related violence in one of Sweden's most segregated cities.
The bomb and grenade attacks - already near the total level of 2014 - came the same year as a mass shooting in the nearby city of Gothenburg. Two masked men opened fire in a bar, killing two and wounding at least 10 people.
With a population of just 300,000, Malmo has long been a smuggling hub due its closeness to Denmark, with which it has been connected by a bridge to Copenhagen since 2000.
Around a third of the city's population are immigrants - double the national average, and nearly one in three is unemployed. Among young immigrants, the rate is nearly 40 per cent - Somalis, Iraqis, Bosnians and Iranians squeezed into concrete tenement blocks.
Gangs began here decades ago as motorcycle groups and were increasingly dominated by immigrants, due to an influx in the 1990s of refugees of Balkan wars and then immigrants from the Middle East, Africa and eastern Europe.
Most grenades have been smuggled from the Balkans to Malmo, a gateway to the rest of Scandinavia for drugs and arms.
After years in the military and police dealing with bombs and mines, Goran Mansson is now back home advising Swedes what to do if they find an unexploded grenade on their street or in a playground.
As bomb squad chief in Malmo, Mansson has been busy in the past few months.
"It's an irony, because I've been working in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Western Sahara and conducted mine awareness with the local people. Now I have to do almost the same in Malmo - to warn people in television and also in newspapers that 'do not pick up any unexploded item that looks like a hand grenade'," Mansson said.
The most serious incident so far has been the grenade attack on a building where Ramadan was being celebrated.
Palmkvist said had the grenade landed differently, it could have caused fatalities.
"When a group was celebrating the end of Ramadan on Norra Grangesbergsgatan, a pretty central part of town, when somebody just threw a hand grenade at the premises and one person I think, maybe two, were hurt. This could have ended much worse had the grenade come further into the premises or had more people been in the street and so on, it could have killed ten, fifteen people," he said.
Iraqi-born Ghanem Almanei described the attack on the Ramadan celebration, attended by some 50 people.
"It was a really big bomb... It was women, girls inside," said Almanei, half-an-hour after men on motor bikes threw a grenade against the building.
The attacks have shocked the Nordic country that prides itself on safety. They have also led to worries about criminality and given political fodder to a resurgent far-right that blames immigrant gangs for the violence.
While most Swedes are open to immigrants, the far right Sweden Democrats became the third biggest party in parliament in last year's election, in part by demanding a clampdown on immigration and crime.
The city's main mosque has suffered several arson attacks. Jewish groups have warned of growing anti-Semitic attacks. Two schools were closed this year due to violence among students.
As a result, a growing sense of fear is developing in the city.
"I feel very concerned," said Kristin Lidgren, who works with a theatre group. "It doesn't concern me closely, I wasn't close to the shootings (blasts), but I always.. the thing is in Malmo, as we hear these things happening we discuss it with each other. It's nothing that we hide."
But Malin Eriksson said she wasn't worried.
"So much is happening in the world, so it's not strange that it affects us too eventually," she said.
With no arrests after the recent attacks, local media have said police were undermanned. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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