Swedes respond to horror against the background of the Walpurgis festival

On the eve of the Walpurgis Festival, Sweden, to mark the beginning of spring, young people were busy choosing outfits or getting hair. Not all of them made him alive there.

In the barber shop in Uppsal, in the city north of Stockholm, three young people who, according to police, were shot dead on Tuesday before the celebrations began.

Horror left many shocked festival, known as Walborg in Swedish, which is usually a conveyal case every 30 April on the eve of the Holy Walpurg Holiday Day. Uapsala, which runs across the country, holds the largest and most high -profile events in the country popular among students.

The parties went forward in the midst, but the thin gravity hung over the Swedish blue and yellow flags that fluttered around the city.

And now that the festival has finished, it’s just a police tape – not flags – fluttering outside the hairdresser in the basement where The shooting occurred close to the Waxal Square.

“It’s really sad,” says 20-year-old student Yame Alhum, who is in the area to eat in a nearby food truck. He says he was in another barber shop on the shooting at night, but his hair was cut in this salon several times. “I think if I were there (Tuesday) … I would, as if, participated in shooting. And it’s a little scary.”

According to witnesses who talked to the Swedish media -TV4 and Aftonbladet, two young victims were dressed in hairdressers and sat in the salon chairs when they were shot dead immediately after 5 pm on Tuesday.

At the time, the city center was busy when the passengers made their way to the nearby railway station, and students from the prestigious university of the city returned to their apartments.

Witnesses say they hear a loud bang that many use fireworks. A few minutes later, several police cars arrived and ambulances, blocking the street and forcing the bus to turn around. Helicopters and drones were sent to try to find the suspect. Local media reported that he had a mask and used an electric scooter to leave the scene.

“I heard helicopters, and then I knew something happened,” says Sarah, a 32-year-old who lives on the street. She says her phone quickly caught fire with messages and texts from friends, asking or well with her.

About two hours after the shootings, police detained a 16-year-old boy. In Sweden, the suspects may be based on various levels of suspicion, and the teenager initially passed at the second largest, which testifies to strong suspicion.

However, by Friday, the prosecutor’s office stated that the case had weakened against him and was released.

Saturday Swedish police confirmed this Now six people were arrested in connection with the case. According to the State Prosecutor’s Office, suspects between the ages of 18 and 45 are suspected of killing.

People who intend to visit Upsal at the Walpurg Festival were advised not to change their plans, as the police promised additional resources on the streets of the cathedral and suggested that the shooting was probably “isolated”.

While many were swayed, tens of thousands of the Swedes still listened to their tips, packed the banks of the Firis Uppsal River to watch the annual student raft race, drinking in the papers and parks of the city or to head to a huge public fire. Others joined the annual spring ceremony under the university’s borders, where the current and former students gathered to wave white hats.

“I don’t really feel so scary,” says Alvin Rose, 19, a social research student, having a snack on Waxal Square, near the corner from where the shooting took place. “It feels like there is more security, more police officers.”

His friend Cassandra Fritz, an 18-year-old student of natural sciences, says he went to Uppsal from his house in Havel, two hours north to “have fun and get acquainted with new people”.

It reflects that it no longer has a “strong” reaction to shooting in Sweden because they are often in headlines. “Recently, there have been so many pictures not only here, in Uppsala, but also, like everywhere in Sweden.”

Over the last decade, Sweden has appeared as European Hot Point for Crimesoften associated with criminal networks. Research For the National Council of Sweden on the prevention of crimes, published last year, came to the conclusion that the profile of the criminals is “more younger” and an increasing number of teenagers who are carried out and are dying of weapons violence.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Christorson was on a working trip to Valencia when the Uppsala shooting took place, but has since called it an “extremely harsh act”.

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

At the press conference the day officers said they were investigating the possibility that death was linked to a gang crime, but stated that it would confirm it too quickly.

Police In various Swedish cities, it was previously said that gangs are becoming more common for vulnerable children who commit crimes because those 15 and younger are below the age of Sweden.

Recently, the Swedish government proposed a new contradictory legislation that would allow the police to listen to children while trying to prevent them from recruiting in teenage gangs.

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

In February 10 people died in the worst mass shooting in the country In the Training Center of Adults in the Swedish city of Areba. In this case, the police suspect that the 35-year-old guy was behind the killings. He legally possessed a weapon and was found dead in the building.

Outside the Hairdresser in Uppsal, 20-year-old Yamer says he has never participated in the gang crime but knows many others who have.

“Many times in my school there was violence in the gang, and on the streets – dealers,” he says. “But my personality was for work, studying, and now I’m studying at college.”

When he goes to meet friends, the constant stream of young people continues to stop at the corner of the street near the hairdressers, some bring bouquets of flowers. Several look noticeably shaved and have tears in the eyes.

“I knew him very well,” says 16-year-old Elias, who says he was friends with one of the victims, and asked the BBC not to share his last name. “You know it’s unrealistic. You don’t feel that I really took the situation.”