In early September, Danish police charged two Swedish teenagers with attempted murder, saying they had been hired by cooperating Swedish and Danish organized crime gangs. The police said they are currently working around 25 similar cases.
“Child soldiers are being recruited by gangs to attack each other,” Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told reporters recently. “What is happening on the other side of Øresund?” he said, referring to the strait that separates Denmark and Sweden.
To be called out by its Scandinavian neighbors is a shocking and humbling development for Sweden, a country long seen as a European bastion of social stability. Sweden’s security situation risks undermining the reputation of the country at home and abroad, observers say.
“This is embarrassing for Sweden and it looks terrible,” said Fredrik Furtenbach, a political commentator with Swedish national radio SR, just last August.
Denmark’s Hummelgaard called Sweden’s Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer to Copenhagen for emergency talks over the issue in late August.
After the meeting, Strömmer acknowledged the validity of concerns about Swedish gang criminality affecting its neighbors, along with how Sweden needs to do more to stop the problem at source.