Three people have been killed in shootings and explosions in less than 24 hours in Sweden, which has been plagued by a wave of violence linked to gang warfare that is now claiming daily casualties.

“Crime has risen to a level we have never seen before. The situation is serious in Uppsala and across the country,” Katarina Boval, a police spokeswoman for the university town 70 km north of Stockholm, told a press conference today. , where a young woman was killed during the night.

The conflict between gangs over the control of drug trafficking mainly affects the city of Uppsala, which has been under increased police surveillance and has seen an escalation of violence since late June.

According to public broadcaster SVT, 12 people died in shootings and explosions in September, the deadliest month in four years, and the past 24 hours have been particularly deadly.

A first shooting occurred in an affluent suburb of Stockholm shortly before 19:00 on Wednesday night: a young man was killed by a bullet near a sports field where children were practicing soccer, according to the national police.

A homicide investigation is underway and the stadium is closed until Friday.

“Innocent people with nothing to do with organized crime, among them children who came to their training, were once again forced to witness a merciless shooting during which a man was killed,” Prime Minister Ulf Christerson told TV4.

“Kids wearing football jerseys and shorts are crying and parents are very worried. My thoughts are with all these children, their mothers and fathers. These mindless killers will not stop shooting each other and to shoot others until we stop them,” he added.

A second shooting occurred a few hours later, around midnight, in another southern Stockholm suburb, injuring two people, one of whom succumbed to his injuries, police said. Three men were arrested.

– Appeal to the army? Opposition parties call on army to tackle deadly gang war –

And on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, around 4 am, an explosive device killed a 25-year-old young woman in the suburb of Uppsala. Five houses were damaged, police said on their website.

“It is possible that this event has something to do with the ethnic conflict” between the criminal gangs, added the Uppsala police spokeswoman who expects this war to continue.

This unprecedented wave of violence is linked to the war between criminal gangs for control of drug trafficking. It has for weeks rocked the country, which has been struggling to stop these explosions – often aimed at intimidating rival gang members and their relatives – and near-daily fatal shootings.

The perpetrators of these violent incidents are increasingly young and these attacks have been causing casualties, which are the collateral casualties, in recent weeks.

To stop the evil, the Social Democrats (left) and the Sweden Democrats (far right) today proposed that the army be called in to support the police in their work.

“This is not Sweden, it is not the way Sweden is supposed to be,” Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson said at a press conference today.

Anderson, who lost last year’s election in part because voters disapproved of her government’s ability to tackle crime, called on the prime minister to change the law to allow the military to help police fight gangs. “The patrolling that the police are doing could be done by the military. Plus, the military has the expertise to help.”

A possibility currently ruled out by Justice Minister Gunnar Strömer, who at least says he is “listening to all proposals from all parties” in order to stop the escalation of violence.

“Criminal conflicts in Sweden pose a serious threat to the country’s security.” Innocents are murdered, injured. We are doing everything possible within the ranks of the police and together with others to stop this development,” said national police director Anders Thornberg.

Police estimate that nearly 30,000 people in Sweden are directly involved in or have ties to gang crime. Violence has also spread from large urban areas to smaller towns where violent crime was once rare.

In 2022, Sweden recorded 391 shooting incidents, of which 62 were fatal.