Inside Sweden’s descent into ultra-violence where drug gangs carry out 30 bombings a MONTH in fight for supremacy

AS life drained from his bullet-scarred body, nursing assistant Salim Iskef Facetimed his fiancée to speak to her for the last time.

Sobbing Kareen Elia, 24, revealed: “He said he loved me so much. I can’t describe the feelings. We were supposed to get married on July 25.”

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The pair had fled Syria’s brutal war to find sanctuary in Sweden, a land once renowned as a peace- loving bastion of liberalism.

Now, alongside nine other innocents, Salim, 28, lay dead in a college campus after the Scandinavian nation’s worst-ever gun massacre.

Visiting the shrine of candles and floral tributes outside the crime scene this week, the country’s visibly upset Queen Silvia asked: “Where did the beautiful Sweden go?”

It’s a heartfelt sentiment many of her citizens share.

The land that spawned the joyful music of Abba and dependable brands Volvo and Ikea has now become a byword for ultra-violence.

More than 30 bombings rocked the country last month alone, mostly around capital Stockholm as ruthless drug gangs vied for supremacy.

Many of those involved are baby-faced hoodlums killing for cash and misplaced street credibility.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson admitted last month: “We don’t have control over the wave of violence.”

And the Swedish underworld is exporting its mayhem.

In a four-month period last year at least 25 young Swedes on suspected contract-killing or bombing missions were arrested in neighbouring Denmark.

‘Screams and smoke’

Once-sedate Sweden faced more bloodshed last week when anti-Islam campaigner Salwan Momika, 38, was live-streaming on TikTok when an assassin gunned him down in ­Sodertalje, near Stockholm.

Sweden’s security services are probing whether the murder of the Iraqi refugee, who had caused ­outrage by burning pages from the Koran, was linked to another ­country.

Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch described Momika’s slaying as “a threat to our free democracy”.

Despite its record as a “humanitarian superpower”, Sweden has struggled to integrate the numbers of migrants who flocked to its shores.

Some from second or third generation immigrant backgrounds felt excluded from mainstream society and drifted into drugs and crime.

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Yet the gunman in Orebro this week was a homegrown white Swede whose licence for his four hunting firearms was issued by the police.

Dressed in camo gear and armed to the teeth, unemployed “loner” Rickard Andersson, 35, fired what appeared to be smoke grenades as he pitilessly stalked his victims through Campus Risbergska.

The 130 cops who stormed the school grounds faced an “inferno”.

Police chief Lars Wiren revealed: “They were met by dead and injured people, screams and smoke.”

One student rescued by officers, Andreas Sundling, 28, said: “It was crazy — there was blood everywhere.”

I think it was a racially motivated attack.

He was mentally ill and was still allowed a gun licence.

Student Hanad Mohammed

Last night police revealed the victims were seven women and three men ranging in age from 28 to 68.

Reportedly, they include an Eritrean mother, a middle-aged Iranian woman and a Syrian dad-of-two.

Police have yet to confirm a motive for the frenzied shooting at a campus attended by many migrants taking adult education classes.

Yet some I spoke to in the grieving city of Orebro this week believe that racism lay behind the slayings.

Abdullah Al-tameemi told me how he had left the school minutes before Andersson struck but that one of his friends was gunned down.

Outside his home — on the outskirts of the medieval university city 125 miles west of Stockholm — Abdullah choked back tears as he said: “For me, it was racist.

“There’s four or five schools in the area but he chose this one.”

Iraq-born Abdullah, 25, points out that migrants at the college were “trying to educate ourselves so we can contribute to society”.

He added: “The authorities are saying it’s not linked to terrorism but when a man with a gun shoots ten people who were simply there to study then it’s terrorism.”

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Chilling videos captured by those trapped in the school suggest Andersson methodically hunted down his victims, with bursts of gunfire followed by deathly silence.

In one clip, student Hashem Shams cowers in a toilet while the gunshots get closer and closer.

Swedish channel TV4, which made an audio analysis of the video, says a voice shouts: “You should leave Europe”. Police haven’t confirmed the claim.

Mass murderer Andersson — born Jonas Rickard Simon before changing his name eight years ago — had never been in trouble with the law.

A native of Orebro, his old classmates describe him as being “sociable” and “happy” at primary and middle school.

Then at a senior school he withdrew into his own isolated world.

Suffering from “extreme social phobia” he would walk around with his hood up while covering his mouth with his hands.

The police say this man acted alone but this hate comes from somewhere.

Priest Jacob Kasselia

Swedish media report he attended classes for people with Asperger’s and high-functioning autism.

Andersson was denied the chance to serve in Sweden’s military because he had flunked his ­secondary education.

He enrolled at Risbergska school as a mature student to study maths.

Then one day in 2021 he stopped attending. Neighbours at his shabby flat near the centre of Orebro — population 126,000 — say he shunned human interaction. On Tuesday his ­rampage ended when he apparently turned a gun on himself.

His corpse was found surrounded by three rifles, ten empty magazines and a large amount of unused ammunition. The murderer apparently left no trace of his life on social media.

According to locals, his victims include innocents from Bosnia, the Middle East and Africa. Police have yet to confirm their identities.

Arriving to light a candle close to the police tape around the school, university student Hanad Mohammed, 20, told me: “I think it was a racially motivated attack.

“He was mentally ill and was still allowed a gun licence.”

Fellow student William Asefaw, 20, added: “Someone who works at the hospital told me it was simply immigrants that were affected.”

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When Sun photographer Chris Eades and I visited killer Andersson’s home apartment block near Orebro city centre, we found a racist sticker on a lamp post.

Close to the reclusive killer’s second floor flat, it featured a stop symbol over the crescent moon of Islam with the words: “Sweden for the Swedish.”

The repellent sticker was also adorned with the name of far Right political party Alternative for ­Sweden, which has advocated for the forced repatriation of migrants.

It’s a fringe party with little clout.

Yet Sweden’s immigration policy has nevertheless hardened recently.

Flashing back to 2014, then-PM Fredrik Reinfeldt asked Swedes to “open your hearts” to refugees.

It was a social democratic nation famed for welcoming asylum seekers and its generous welfare state.

A decade on, it emerged last year that more people are now leaving Sweden than arriving.

Harrowing scenes

And the Sweden Democrats — a populist party with a tough stance on immigration — props up the centre-Right ruling coalition.

With around one in five Swedes — 2.2million people — born abroad, the Nordic nation has struggled with the sheer numbers of arrivals.

In 2015 alone, Sweden took in 163,000 refugees, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Too many were allowed to fester without jobs or prospects in its poverty-blighted satellite towns.

The authorities are saying it’s not linked to terrorism but when a man with a gun shoots ten people who were simply there to study then it’s terrorism.

Student Abdullah Al-tameemi

Last year gang expert Diamant Salihu told me: “There’s a consensus now that Sweden has failed with integration.”

Yet the country’s gun chaos has seeped into all sections of society.

Anti-violence campaigner Maritha Ogilvie — whose son Marley was shot dead in an unsolved murder in 2015 — says Sweden’s gun ­licensing regime is too lax.

The Stockholm care worker, 53, told me: “This man was able to get a gun licence yet he was unable to join the Swedish army. That’s crazy.

“He is said to have had a mental condition, so how does he get a gun licence?”

Yesterday the Swedish government vowed to strengthen gun laws.
On Thursday evening, Orebro’s Syriac Orthodox Church of St Mary held a memorial service to honour victim Salim Iskef.

Fiancée Kareen gazed at an image of her loved one on an easel before her sobs turned to screams.

Their dreams of children and a life together have been shattered.

Priest Jacob Kasselia said: “The police say this man acted alone but this hate comes from somewhere.”

Despite sub-zero temperatures, weeping locals gathered last night amid flickering candles’ at the memorial at Campus Risbergska.

Mourning their murdered kinfolk, they prayed that beautiful Sweden has not disappeared forever.

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