A teenager has been arrested after three people died in a shooting near a school in Sweden.
Locals were starting to celebrate a major Spring festival when gunshots rang out just off Uppsala’s Vaksala Square around 5pm local time on Tuesday.
Two hours later, police confirmed three people had been killed. It is not yet clear how many others were injured or what condition they are in.
The victims have not been identified.
Swedish prosecutors confirmed on Wednesday morning that a 16-year-old has been arrested on suspicion of murder – the highest level of suspicion in the country’s legal system.
The suspect has not been identified and it is not yet known whether they are male or female.
The Swedish Prosecution Authority said in a statement: ‘An intensive investigation is underway. We are now gathering information and the police are conducting door-to-door inquiries and interviewing witnesses.’
‘In addition, mobile phones and other material that has been seized are being analysed.’
Witnesses described the gunshots as ‘sounding like fireworks’, with local media saying it happened at a hair salon.
‘I heard the bangs and immediately understood there was a shooting,’ Alexander Griedl, a local, told SVT Uppsala.
‘Everything happened so fast. It just went bang, bang, bang,’ a witness told Swedish channel TV4.
The police said: ‘As the police continue to work to identify the deceased, the police want to be clear that no relatives have been notified. The police are investigating the incident as a murder.’
Described as the ‘Cambridge of Sweden’ for its large student population, Uppsala is home to around 175,000 people.
It’s a 35-minute train ride from the capital, Stockholm, although rail services were suspended while police hunted for the shooter.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
Helicopters hovered above the scene while Hjalmar Brantingsgatan was blockaded by police, with ambulances lining the street.
Vaksala Square is the location of the Uppsala’s concert hall and the green listed school building home to Vaksalaskolan.
Next to Uppsala’s main train station, it also hosts market stalls.
It would usually have been busy, but tomorrow is Valborg – or Walpurgis Night – a major Spring festival celebrated in Scandinavia.
Traditionally, people start to celebrate the day before, bringing higher than usually footfall to the area of the shooting.
Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer said: ‘A brutal act of violence has occurred in central Uppsala. The police have confirmed that three people have lost their lives.
‘This is at the same time as the whole of Uppsala has begun the Walpurgis weekend. What has happened is extraordinarily serious.’
While Sweden has long been known for low crime rates, the country has one of the highest per capita rates of gun violence in the EU.
Last year, 296 shootings happened in Sweden, according to police data. In March, 50 were reported to the police.
The country has been dealing with a wave of gang-related violence for more than a decade – and police said this is one of the theories they are pursuing ‘particularly intensively’.
The force added it was too early to say if last night’s shooting was gang related, and said it was believed to be an ‘isolated event’ and unrelated to Walpurgis Night.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.