A GROUP of masked men believed to belong to a Neo-Nazi gang stormed Sweden’s main train station and bashed foreigners, including children, to “punish” migrants over the weekend.
Wearing all-black balaclavas and armbands, the men “gathered (in Stockholm) with the purpose of attacking refugee children,” Stockholm police spokesperson Towe Hagg said.
The Independent reported that “hundreds of masked men marched through Stockholm’s main train station on Friday evening, reportedly beating up refugees and anyone who didn’t appear to be ethnically Swedish”.
“I saw maybe three people who were beaten. That was no football brawl or something similar. They targeted migrants. I was quite scared and ran away,” a witness told the Aftonbladet newspaper.
The paper quoted another witness as saying:
“I was passing by and saw a masked group dressed in black ... start hitting foreigners. I saw three people molested“.
The Swedish Resistance Movement, a Neo-Nazi group, carried out a number of assaults on migrants in Stockholm on Friday amid rising tension over the country’s refugee influx, Swedish police said Saturday.
The Swedish Resistance Movement claimed responsibility for the attacks in a statement online:
“Today were therefore 200 Swedish men to mark the North African “street children” raging around the capital’s main railway station,” it read.
“Police have clearly shown that they lack the means to repress their progress and we now see no other alternative than to hand out punishments they deserve.”
Police had beefed up their presence in the city centre, deploying anti-riot and helicopter units after learning that extremists were planning “aggression on unaccompanied migrant minors” in the city late on Friday.
Police spokesman Towe Hagg said by midday police had not received any complaints of assault but one 46-year-old man was arrested after striking a plainclothes officer.
Swedish Interior Minister Anders Ygeman condemned the “racist groups which threaten and spread hate in the public space”, adding that “one must respond strongly”.
“This is a disturbing trend in society,” Ygeman said in a commentary published by news agency TT.
Three further people were briefly detained for public order disturbances and one more faces charges for carrying a knife.
As many as 100 people, their faces covered, had descended early Friday evening on the Sergels Torg pedestrian square, a popular meeting point for young people, including migrant youths.
Aftonbladet quoted witnesses as saying the masked group targeted “people of foreign appearance” and handed out leaflets urging the infliction of “deserved punishment on children of the North African street.” The website Nordfront, an online forum for the Neo-Nazi SMR movement, said its “sources” had revealed that around “100 hooligans” from the AIK and Djurgarden football clubs had gathered Friday in order to “sort out the criminals coming in from North Africa.”
After initially taking a generous stance on migration — the country of 9.8 million is among the European Union states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita — Sweden has in recent days said it expects to expel tens of thousands of people over several years as it struggles to cope with the influx.
Booed by dozens of “anti-fascist” activists, some 200 people gathered in Stockholm on Saturday to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven as well as the acceleration of migrant deportations, an AFP journalist said.
The number of new migrants entering the country has plunged since Stockholm on January 4 introduced systematic photo ID checks on train, bus and ferry passengers coming in via Denmark.
The toughening of policy comes against a backdrop of rising concern over conditions in the country’s overcrowded asylum facilities.
Officials also called for greater security after an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths was fatally stabbed earlier this week.
After initially taking a generous stance on migration — the country of 9.8 million is among the European Union states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita — Sweden has in recent days said it expects to expel tens of thousands of people over several years as it struggles to cope with the influx.
The number of new migrants entering the country has plunged since Stockholm introduced systematic photo ID checks on travellers on January 4.
The toughening of policy comes against a backdrop of rising concern over conditions in the country’s overcrowded asylum facilities, and officials called for greater security after an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths was fatally stabbed earlier this week.
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