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The Local — June 19, 2018

MALMÖ 20180618  Polisens kriminaltekniker på plats på Drottninggatan i Malmö natten till tisdagen efter att sex personer skjutits på öppen gata i anslutning till ett internetcafé. Två personer  har avlidit av sina skador. Ett stort antal personer blev vittnen till händelsen som inträffade vid 20-tiden.  Foto: Johan Nilsson / TT / kod 50090

Three people were killed and three others wounded in a shooting in the centre of the southern Swedish city of Malmö on Monday, police said, ruling out a terrorist link.

Malmö police said shortly before midnight that an 18-year-old had died in hospital, and around half an hour later they confirmed that another one of the injured, a 29-year-old, had also died. A third was confirmed dead on Tuesday morning, and three other people were treated in hospital for their injuries.

The first calls about the shooting were made to police shortly after 8 pm on Monday evening.

“There is a lot of police working on the incident,” police press officer Fredrik Bratt said.

A police spokesman told AFP that the possibility of a terrorist link to the attack had been discounted. According to the Aftonbladet daily, the victims were attacked as they left an internet cafe in the middle of the town.

Witnesses were quoted as saying that at least one attacker was armed with an automatic weapon.

The police initially refused to comment on the identity of the possible attacker or attackers, who they said fired the shots from a car or a fixed location, as well as declining to give details of the victims.

Later on Tuesday however, it was revealed that the shooting was part of a gang conflict.

“There are a number of gang conflicts we’re treating as heated at the moment and this is one of them. But we didn’t have information about something happening here and now,” Stefan Sinteus from Malmö police told news agency TT.

“We know that there have been shootings where several people were injured, but it’s uncommon for three people to be killed as happened last night.”

While Sweden has relatively low levels of crime, neighbourhoods in Malmö, Stockholm and Gothenburg have seen a rise in violence attributed to gangs fighting over drug trafficking and prostitution.

Source

Comment — June 19, 2019

The Swedish authorities are not the only ones trying to play down the extent of gang-related violence in the country. The local media is too.
That may be because while Sweden has seen a massive increase in violent crime in recent years and this has occurred together with a huge influx of immigrants.
Of course you are not supposed to say it but the two appear to be inextricably linked.
As a result cities with large immigrant populations have become hotbeds of gang culture and violent crime. This has become so bad that cities like Malmo often see hand grenade attacks and police guarding police stations with machine guns to deter such attacks. Ed.