The Swedish city of Helsingborg has seen a steep rise in shootings, with fatalities in three of the 20 cases recorded in 2017.
In 2016, there were only five shootings in the city which lies on the south-west coast only miles from neighbouring Denmark. In less than a year, the number of shootings had surged to 20, in the city of less than 100,000 inhabitants — a number of attacks unheard of until recently in the formerly peaceful Scandinavian nation.
In almost all of the cases, the victims of the shootings were young men in their 20s and police believe them to be linked to organised crime, Swedish broadcaster, SVT reports.
“It’s our local criminal networks that shoot each other and the reasons are for money, drugs, and weapons. These are the three ingredients,” said local police district manager in Helsingborg Sven Holgersson.
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