1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites

Boy victim of hand grenade attack in Goteborg

August 23, 2016

A hand grenade thrown through the window of a third-floor apartment has killed a sleeping child in Sweden's second city. The unidentified 8-year-old boy was reportedly with his family visiting from out-of-town.

https://p.dw.com/p/1JnHY
Schweden Gothenburg Anschlag
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B.L.Rosvall

At least five children and several adults were in a Goteborg apartment when a grenade was thrown through the window early Monday, police said.

"Many children and adults were in the apartment. It could have been much worse," a Goteborg police spokesman told Swedish radio.

But a young boy - whom police did not identify - had been sleeping in the living room and was killed by the attack in the Biskopsgarden district of the city. He died on the way to the hospital.

Schweden Göteborg Schießerei Kneipe Fußballspiel
Men armed with automatic weapons burst into the Var Krog och Bar in March 18, 2015, killing two people inside the pub. One of the convicted perpetrators was registered at the address of Monday's grenade attack.Image: Reuters/Bjorn Larsson Rosvall/TT News Agency

Possible links to 2015 mass shooting

Details on a possible motive were scant though court records indicated that the flat was registered to at least one person convicted for involvement in last year's fatal shooting targeting members of the local Somali community inside a local pub.

"One of the people registered at this address is a person convicted by a district court for murder," police said.

That's led to speculation that the attack could have been a feud involving criminal gangs. In recent years, there have been grenade attacks, shootings and incidents of car arson in the city.

It's been a hot summer in Sweden as cars have been torched in the neighborhoods on an almost nightly basis as part of gangland feuds. The center-right opposition has called for 2,000 more police officers to be hired, while the leftwing government has backed a series of crime prevention measures.

jar/rc (AP, AFP, dpa)