A wave of gang violence has turned Sweden, usually known as a peaceful welfare state, into one of the most murderous countries in Europe.
Ground wars are being waged for control of the drug trade. Illegal weapons, personal vendettas and youth gangs involved.
Most of them belong to marginalized immigrant communities.
With 62 people killed last year, up from 45 in 2021, Sweden's overall homicide rate is about one-sixth that of the US! But in a European context, it is a disturbing figure.
Stockholm's gun homicide rate was roughly 30 times higher per capita than London's.
The authors are relatively young. The tactics are getting more and more violent: throwing grenades, bombs. These weapons put the lives of passers-by at risk.
The gang war has shocked many Swedes. A gang member's wife was shot dead in the street while holding her newborn child.
In January, a restaurant in the fashionable district of central Stockholm was hit by a bomb blast.
The most notorious leader of the violent gang is Rawa Majid, better known as the Kurdish Fox, who went to Sweden as a newborn in 1986 after his parents fled to Iraq.
He is running his drug operations from Turkey.
The people of Stockholm are the most worried of all. They live in fear that their children may be enticed to join these criminal groups.
