Tuesday, August 23, 2016
Yuusuf Warsame, 8, died after a grenade was thrown into the living room of a flat in Sweden. CREDIT: SWNS
An eight-year-old killed after a grenade exploded in an apartment in Sweden was reportedly a schoolboy from Birmingham.
The boy was visiting family in Gothenburg when the blast - linked to a gangland feud - hit their third-floor apartment around 3am on Monday, Swedish police said. He died of his injuries on the way to hospital.
The youngster was named in reports as Yuusuf Warsame, a pupil at Nelson Mandela Primary School in Sparkhill, Birmingham.
His father, Abdiwahid Warsame, confirmed his son had died in the grenade attack, which is being treated as murder by Swedish police.
The dad-of-seven said two other people in the flat had also suffered minor injuries in the blast.
Another family member said: "The room Yuusuf was in when the attack happened, was also occupied by our mother, sister and youngest brother.
"It is a miracle none of them were badly injured, they only sustained minor injuries."
The flat that was hit by a grenade attack in Gothenburg. CREDIT: EPA
Yuusuf was born and raised in Birmingham after his parents, both Dutch passport holders, moved to Sparkhill in 2001.
Thomas Fuxborg, Gothenburg police spokesman, told a local website the death of the little boy was being investigated as murder.
He added: "Someone was standing outside the apartment and threw a hand grenade through the window, into the living room.
"The boy was not part of the family registered at the address. This is abhorrent. From the outside it is impossible to know who is in the apartment. That it affects an eight-year-old completely innocent boy, is despicable."
The violence was linked to a gangland feud by Swedish media, who quoted police as saying a man convicted of a fatal shooting last year was registered at the address.
"One of the people registered at this address is a person convicted by a district court for murder" in a settling of scores between members of the Somali community in Gothenburg, police said.
In March 2015, armed men burst into a pub in the Biskopsgarden neighbourhood, gunning down a man known to police and an innocent bystander in a spray of bullets.
Eight people were convicted earlier this month for the attack, and handed sentences ranging from seven years to life in prison.
Forensic officers attend the scene Biskopsgarden, in Gothenburg. CREDIT: REUTERS
According to local newspaper Goteborgs-Posten, which conducted a lengthy investigation of the vendetta, the pub shooting spree was the culmination of several violent incidents between rival gangs over the drug market.
In recent years, there have been grenade attacks, shootings and incidents of car arson.
The issue has been one of the main topics of Sweden's political debate this summer, as cars have been torched in the neighbourhoods on an almost nightly basis.
The centre-right opposition has called for 2,000 more police officers to be hired, while the leftwing government has proposed a series of crime prevention measures.