Sweden is one of the most welcoming countries in Europe, taking in more refugees per capita than anyone else.
But residents of at least one small town outside Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city, are beginning to regret that open-arms policy.
Molndal is a quiet suburb of 63,000. But in the last year, more than 4,000 refugees – most of them unaccompanied minors from the Middle East and Africa – have set off a crime wave that culminated in the murder of a social worker in a refugee center that has shocked Europe.
The murder of social worker Alexandra Mezher at a home for unaccompanied refugees this week has shone the spotlight on the country’s controversial open-door immigration policy.
The 22-year-old’s mother Chimene, who arrived in Sweden as a refugee, claims the country is no longer safe.
Heartbroken Mrs Mezher said: ‘We left Lebanon to escape the civil war, the violence and the danger. We came to Sweden where it was safe, to start a family. But it is not safe anymore.’
Her husband Bourous, 45, moved to Sweden from Beirut in 1989 and built up a pizza business. Mrs Mezher, who has three sons, said: ‘She was not just my daughter, she was my angel. She was a just and fair human being. There were so many who loved her. She was my daughter, my friend.’
She blamed Swedish politicians for a dramatic rise in immigration in Molndal – particularly of unaccompanied children.
Officers in Mölndal say they have had to ignore lesser offences such as drug-dealing because they are so overrun by migrant crime, with gang fights and violent assaults.
And in capital Stockholm police this week warned that the capital’s main train station was ‘overrun’ by gangs of Moroccan street children ‘stealing and groping girls’.
Swedish police revealed they have sent plain-clothes officers to monitor swimming baths in Stockholm after increased reports of sexual harassment of girls and women.
It was also claimed this week police had been forced to flee after being attacked by a mob of asylum seekers as they tried to relocate a ten-year-old boy amid allegations he had been ‘raped repeatedly’ at a refugee centre.
And staff at a migrant centre in Sweden had to flee where 19 asylum seekers ran riot with weapons.
Crime statistics in Mölndal also contradict Abdasis’s assessment of ‘peace, happiness, life’ in the town.
Police say they have responded to four or five emergency calls from refugee centres in the Gothenburg area – which includes Mölndal – every day since late October.
The city’s most up-to-date crime figures reveal there were 372 incidents reported which led to 222 criminal complaints linked to migrant centres – between 20 October 2015 and 8 January this year.
Mölndal’s politicians have refused to explain their open-door immigration policy.
Of course they’re keeping their mouths shut. The blowback has just begun. Turning once idyllic towns into crime-ridden centers of fear and disgust is what happens when young men used to violence in their home countries become refugees taken in by tolerant and open-hearted Europeans. It’s like the lions lying down with the lambs – except the lambs prove to be too much of a temptation for the lions.
The police in many Swedish cities and towns are absolutely overwhelmed:
‘I have worked in Gothenburg for over 30 years and I have never known anything like it,’ the officer told MailOnline.
‘I will not let my children go into the city after 2pm and especially not at night.
‘There are violent gangs roaming around the streets and the use of knives and other weapons have become normal, rather than a rarity as it used to be.’
‘There are 20 robberies in Gothenburg every day – usually with violence or the threat of violence.
‘This week an 83-year-old lady had a gun put in her face when she was mugged on her way to play bingo. They got away with just 50 Kroner [about £4].
‘In the summer there were mass shootings with lots of people killed, including a little girl.’
He added the city streets were now at the mercy of gangs of young men mainly from North Africa.
The police source revealed: ‘In the past couple of months we have noticed a dramatic increase in street robbery. This is a new phenomenon.
Most European countries are trying to retroactively restrict immigration, but the flow of refugees is unabated, and it appears that more and more cities will suffer the fate of Gothenburg.
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