Swedes react to horror against the Walpurgis Festival

Prior to the Wolfurgus Festival in Sweden, to celebrate the beginning of spring, young people were busy choosing outfits or doing their hair. Not all of them made it alive.

In a hairdresser in Uppsala, a city north of Stockholm, three young men, whom police claim were between the ages of 15 and 20, were shot dead on Tuesday before the festivities began.

The horror left many shaken in the accumulation of the festival, known as the Walborg of Swedish, which is usually a welcoming affair every April 30 on the eve of the day of the Christian holiday of St. Wolfga. The UPPSala hosts Walpurgis’s largest and most profile events in the country, popular with students.

The coupon moved forward in its height, but a fine weight hung over the Swedish blue and yellow flags that were shaking around the city.

And now that the festival is over, it’s just a police tape – not flags – flickens outside the basement of the barber shop where The shooting was held near Waxala SquareS

“It’s really sad,” says 20-year-old student Yamen Alchum, who is in the area to eat in a nearby food truck. He says he was in another barber shop on the night of the shooting, but before that he cut his hair in this salon repeatedly. “I think if I were there (Tuesday) … I would get involved in the shooting. And it’s a little scary.”

According to witnesses who talk to the Swedish media TV4 and Aftonbladet, two of the young victims were dressed in a razor nose and sat in chairs of salons when they were shot in the head shortly after 5:00 pm on Tuesday.

The city center was busy at the time, while traveling traveling to a nearby station and students from the prestigious university in the city returned to their apartments.

Witnesses say they have heard strong bangs that are very wrong about fireworks. Minutes later, several police cars and an ambulance arrived, blocking the street and forcing the bus to turn. Helicopters and drones were sent to try to track suspects. Local media reported that it was wearing a mask and used an electric scooter to get out of the stage.

“I heard the helicopters, so then I realized that something had happened,” says Sarah, a 32-year-old, who lives on the street. She says her phone quickly ignited news and texts from friends who ask if it’s good.

About two hours after the shooting, police arrested a 16-year-old boy. In Sweden, the suspects can be held based on different levels of suspicion, and the teenager is initially held at the second highest level, which shows a strong suspicion.

By Friday, however, prosecutors said the case against him had weakened and he was released.

On Saturday, Swedish police confirmed that Six people have already been arrested In connection with the case. The suspects vary at the age of 18 to 45, according to the State Prosecutor’s Office, and one suspects that he committed the killings.

People who intended to visit Uppsala for the Wolfurgus Festival were advised not to change their plans, as police promised additional resources on the streets of the city’s cathedral and suggested that the shooting was probably an “isolated incident”.

While many were shaken, tens of thousands of Swedes still listened to their advice, packing the shores of the Firis River of Uppsala to watch the annual student salon race, drinking in city pubs and parks or heading for a huge public fire in the evening. Others joined the annual spring ceremony outside the university, where current and ex -students gathered to wave white hats.

“I don’t really feel so scared,” says the 19 -year -old Alvin Rose, a social research student who was involved in Waxala Square, just around the corner where the shootings happened. “There is more security, more cops.”

His girlfriend Cassandra Fritz, an 18-year-old natural science student, says she was driving to Uppsala from her home in Gaval, two hours north to have fun and meet new people. “

It reflects that there is no longer a “strong” reaction of news about shooting in Sweden, as they are often in the titles. “There are so many shootings lately, not only here, in Uppsala, but like, everywhere in Sweden.”

In the last decade, Sweden has emerged as A European hot spot for a crime with a weaponoften related to criminal networks. Research For the National Crime Prevention Council in Sweden, published last year, he concluded that the profile of the perpetrators was “increasingly young”, with the increasing number of teenagers executing or dying of violence with a gun.

Sweden Prime Minister Wolf Krissterson was on a work trip to Valencia when the firing at the Uppsala was held, but since then he described it as an “extremely violent act”.

“This emphasizes that the wave of violence is not over – it continues,” he said in an interview with the Swedish news agency TT on Wednesday.

At a press conference on the day thereafter, employees said they were investigating the possibility of death related to the gang crime, but said it was too early to confirm this.

Police In different Swedish cities, they have earned earlier that it is becoming more and more that gangs to conclude a contract for vulnerable children to commit crimes, as those who are 15 or more than the youngsters are below the age of criminal liability in Sweden.

Recently, the Sweden government has proposed a controversial new legislation that will allow police to eavesdrop for children in an attempt to prevent them from being appointed to teenage gangs.

Ministers also said they wanted to tighten the country’s weapons laws.

In February 10 people were killed in The oldest mass shooting of the country at the Center for Education for Adults in the Swedish city of Orebro. In this case, police suspect that the 35-year-old is behind the killings. He legally owned a weapon and was found dead inside the building.

Outside the hair salon at Uppsala, 20-year-old Yamn says he has never participated in banking crimes, but knows many others who have.

“Many times in my school there was violence with bands and on the streets – dealers,” he says. “But my personality was to work, to study, and now I’m in college.”

As he leaves to meet friends, a steady stream of young people continue to stop in the corner of the street next to the hairdressers, some carry bouquets of flowers. A few look visibly shaken and have tears in their eyes.

“I knew him very well,” says Elias, a 16-year-old, who says he was friends with one of the victims and asked BBC not to share his last name. “You feel unrealistic, you know. There is no feeling that I really accepted the situation.”