Three people have been killed in overnight shootings and an explosion in Sweden, as deadly violence linked to a feud between criminal gangs escalated.
A man was killed and another injured in a shooting in Jordbro on Wednesday night, just hours after an 18-year-old man was shot dead in a Stockholm suburb.
The deadly shootings were followed by an explosion early on Thursday that killed a woman in her 20s in Uppsala, west of Stockholm. Local media said the woman was likely not the target of the blast, which damaged five houses, and police are treating her death as murder.
The two shootings bring the death toll from gun violence in September to 11, according to Swedish broadcaster SVT, making it the deadliest month for shootings since police started keeping statistics in 2016.
Police patrol at the scene after a shooting in Jordbro, Sweden— (EPA)
It is not yet known whether the three incidents are linked but Swedish media said at least two were connected to a feud between criminal gangs, a growing problem in Sweden which has seen a spate of drive-by shootings and bombings.
Two gangs — one led by a Swedish-Turkish dual national who lives in Turkey, the other by his former lieutenant — are reportedly fighting over drugs and weapons.
Three people have been arrested over the Jordbro shooting, while two are being held in connection with the Uppsala explosion, which was so violent that the fronts of two houses were completely destroyed.
Police patrol at the scene after a shooting in Jordbro, Sweden— (Getty Images)
Earlier this week, two powerful explosions ripped through a street in central Sweden, injuring at least three people and damaging buildings, with bricks and window sections strewn across the road.
Sweden’s center-right government has been tightening laws to tackle gang-related crime, while the head of Sweden’s police has said that warring gangs have brought an “unprecedented” wave of violence to the country.
Earlier this week, Sweden’s justice minister Gunnar Strömmer reiterated that the government will increase the penalty from three years to five years for possessing explosives without a permit from the start of April, when new legislation comes into force.
Additional reporting from agencies.
