Posted on January 25, 2016

Swedish Refugee Centre Worker Dead in Stabbing

The Local, January 25, 2016

A young man allegedly stabbed and killed a female employee at the refugee centre for unaccompanied minors where he was staying in western Sweden, police have said.

The 22-year-old victim was taken to a nearby hospital but died of her wounds. Other residents at the home restrained her alleged attacker while officers arrived.

Police would not comment on the identity or nationality of the alleged attacker, except to say that he was a young man who was a resident of the centre for 14- to 17-year-olds in Mölndal.

He is under arrest for murder or manslaughter.

The attack came as National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson on Monday requested 4,100 additional officers and support staff to help fight terrorism, carry out migrant deportations and police asylum accommodations.

“We are forced to respond to many disturbances in asylum reception centres. In some places, this takes significant police resources. This was not the case six months ago and it means that we won’t be able to respond as effectively in other areas,” Eliasson told Swedish news agency TT.

Some of the police call-outs to asylum housing in the past year have included physical arguments and arson attacks directed at the accommodation centres themselves.

“These kinds of calls are becoming more and more common. We’re dealing with more incidents like these since the arrival of so many more refugees from abroad,” the AFP news agency quoted police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg as saying.

A country of 9.8 million, Sweden took in more than 160,000 asylum seekers in 2015, which put it among the EU states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita. Of those around 35,000 were unaccompanied minors arriving in the country.