COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A 13-year-old boy discovered lifeless in woods close to his house within the suburbs of Stockholm earlier this month was the most recent sufferer of a lethal gang warfare in Sweden, a prosecutor stated Thursday.
Milo, who was solely recognized by his first title, had been shot within the head in a chilling instance of “gross and fully reckless gang violence,” prosecutor Lisa dos Santos stated. He’s believed to have been shot in Haninge, south of Stockholm. She declined to offer additional particulars as a result of ongoing investigation.
Swedish media, which have printed photographs of Milo with the permission of his household, stated the physique had been moved to the woods after the boy — who was not identified to the police — was killed. He was reported lacking on Sept. 8 and his physique was discovered by a passerby three days later.
Prison gangs have turn into a rising downside in Sweden, with an growing variety of drive-by shootings, bombings and grenade assaults. A lot of the violence is in Sweden’s three largest cities: Stockholm, Goteborg and Malmo.
As of Sept. 15, police had counted 261 shootings in Sweden this 12 months, of which 34 had been deadly and 71 individuals had been wounded.
In September alone, the Scandinavian nation noticed 4 shootings, three of them deadly, in Uppsala, west of Stockholm, and within the Swedish capital. One of many victims was the 13-year-old Milo.
In June, a person with an automated weapon opened hearth within the early morning exterior the doorway to a subway station in Farsta, a suburb south of Sweden’s capital, and struck 4 individuals.
A 15-year-old boy died shortly after of his wounds, with the second sufferer, a 43-year-old man, dying later. Two males of their 20s had been later arrested on suspicion of homicide and tried homicide. Sweden’s Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer then stated that greater than 20 pictures had been fired and described the taking pictures as “home terrorism.”
The violence reportedly is fueled by a feud between a twin Turkish-Swedish man who lives in Turkey and his former lieutenant whose mom, a girl in her 60s, was shot Sept. 7 and later died of her wounds.
Sweden’s center-right authorities has been tightening legal guidelines to deal with gang-related crime, whereas the pinnacle of Sweden’s police stated earlier this month that warring gangs had introduced an “unprecedented” wave of violence to the Scandinavian nation.
“A number of boys aged between 13 and 15 have been killed, the mom of a prison was executed at house, and a younger man in Uppsala was shot lifeless on his strategy to work,” police chief Anders Thornberg informed a information convention on Sept. 13. He estimated that some 13,000 persons are linked to Sweden’s prison underworld.
Swedish police stated that “seen from the criminals’ viewpoint, there are a number of benefits to recruiting younger individuals. A toddler is just not managed by the police in the identical approach as an grownup. Nor can a toddler be convicted of against the law. A teenager may also be simpler to affect and exploit.”
