Sweden shooting latest: Police not ruling out racist motivation after 10 killed

Swedish Police have confirmed they are not ruling out the possibility that the school shooting was racially motivated.

The force told The Independent the investigation is ongoing and it is not ruling out anything at this stage.

A survivor of the Swedish school shooting has described the attack as “the worst hours of my life”.

The shooting started on Tuesday afternoon, after many students had gone home following a national exam.

Survivors scrambled for cover as shots rang out, sheltering behind or under whatever they could find to escape the gunman and the gore.

One woman with children feared she might never see them again, while another used her friend’s shawl to staunch the bleeding of a man who’d been shot in the shoulder.

“Those were the worst hours of my life. I did not know if I would get shot there and then, or in 10 minutes. You simply waited,” Hellen Werme, 35, told the Expressen newspaper.

After shooting victim Salim Iskef, 29, was shot he called his mother and fiancee to tell them that he loved them. That was the last they heard from him.

“His fiancee is totally destroyed,” Jacob Kaselia, a friend of the family and priest at St Mary’s church in Orebro, said after leading a memorial service for the 29-year-old in front of about 400 people. “We try to help her, but honestly, it’s very hard.”

In Orebro, a town of 160,000 that’s considered Sweden’s seventh-largest municipality, Thursday brought more sadness but still few answers.

“It has been two days of shock and grief,” John Johansson, chairman of the town’s municipal board, said. “We are still asking questions of why, still wondering what has happened. The outpouring of grief and togetherness has been enormous.”

While gun violence at schools is very rare in Sweden, people were wounded or killed with other weapons such as knives or axes in several incidents in recent years.

Authorities said the shooter had licenses for four weapons, three of which were found next to his body. Police have seized the fourth.

In order to possess a firearm legally, applicants must obtain a weapon license and demonstrate that it will be used for an acceptable purpose, such as hunting or target shooting, and not be misused. Applicants must also submit previously obtained hunting or target shooting certificates. Hunting certificates require people to pass a training course, while target shooters must be certified as active and experienced members of clubs.

In Sweden, a country of roughly 10.5 million people, there were just over 660,000 registered gun owners at the beginning of 2024, according to the Swedish news agency TT. Those registered owners had some 2 million guns, objects that are considered firearms and weapon parts that require a permit.

TT reported that 1.6 million of those guns are registered for hunting, and another 176,000 for target-shooting.

All weapons must be stored in secure cabinets approved by the police. Applications for fully automatic weapons or one-handed weapons are only granted for exceptional reasons, and such permits are generally time-limited.

Permits are revoked if the weapon is modified to be substantially different from its original function.

Authorities have said there were no suspected connections to terrorism at this point.

However, investigators had not uncovered a definitive motive behind the bloodshed by Thursday.

Police said there were no warnings beforehand, and they believe the perpetrator acted alone.

The fiancee of one of the shooting victims has revealed the devastating last video call she had with him after he had been shot when he told her he loved her.

Speaking through tears, Kareen Elia, 24, reportedly described the moment her fiancee Salim Iskef, 29, phoned her from the Swedish school as he lay dying, with blood visible on his hand and someone seen lying still next to him.

The 24-year-old told Swedish broadcaster STV, according to the Guardian: “He called me and said, ‘I’ve been shot, they shot us.’ He said he loves me and that’s the last thing I heard.”

The couple had been planning to get married on 25 July and had already booked the venue, and Ms Elia had already tried on her wedding dress.

She told the broadcaster: “I still want to believe that he might come home. We can’t sleep, we stand by the window waiting for him to come home. No one wants to believe that he is dead. If he is not alive, we just want to see his body.”

Swedish Police have revealed they are probing reports that the shooting suspect had been a student at the shooting where the attack happened.

In a statement, the force said: “There is information that he has been a student at the school and we will look deeper into that.”

Officers found three guns, 10 empty magazines and a large amount of unused ammunition at the scene.

Swedish Police said three of the four weapons that the suspected shooter had gun licences for were discovered next to his dead body inside the school, alongside the unused ammunition.

The force added that 10 empty magazines were found at the scene, while it was established that a rifle-like weapon had been used to fire shots.