At an impromptu shrine outside a shopping centre on the southern reaches of the Stockholm’s commuter belt, teenagers gatherered before photographs of a boy with a faintly goofy smile and voluminous black curls that made him look a little younger than his 15 years.
Ali Shafaei was shot dead here in Skogas on Saturday, the latest victim of a surge of gang violence around the Swedish capital in which at least four teenagers and young men have been killed since Christmas. Over the past month there has, on average, been a shooting or a bombing every day. “It’s extreme out there,” Nikoi Djane, a former criminal turned criminologist, said. “It’s tit for tat. It’s like a game to them now.”
