Reuters — Sweden pledged on Friday to end a surge of gang violence in the southern town of Malmo as the latest in a string of shootings left a 16-year old boy dead.
Home Affairs Anders Ygeman said the government will do everything in its power to break the spiral of killings which have rocked the country’s third biggest city, which has just under 300,000 people.
Over the past two weeks alone, the town has seen five shootings, of which two were fatal. While there are no official statistics on homicides in Malmo, local media has counted 12 in 2016, a record high and around three times more than London’s murder rate.
The police force, already under strain from enforcing border controls at Sweden’s main entry point for immigrants, has requested emergency reinforcement and Ygeman said he will travel to Malmo for meetings with city officials
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