Asylum seekers in Sweden fear backlash after Ikea stabbings

Asylum seekers in Sweden feared an anti-immigrant backlash on Tuesday after a knife attack that left two Ikea shoppers dead.

Police increased their presence at asylum housing centers after announcing that the two murder suspects were from Eritrea, daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported.

"There are dark forces who want to exploit this incident for their own purposes on the issue of refugee admissions," police spokesperson Per Agren said.

The suspects - a 23-year-old man and a 35-year-old who suffered life-threatening injuries in the attack - are suspected of stabbing a mother and her child to death at a shopping center in Vasteras, west of the capital Stockholm.

The men were staying at the same housing center in an adjacent city but had no known ties to their victims, police said.

"I feel scared of the reactions that might follow this, that the event will give rise to hatred of refugees," said a young man at the housing center who had fled from Syria. "That stresses us who live here," he added.

Syrians were heavily represented as Sweden welcomed more asylum applicants per capita than any other European Union country in 2014, although immigration levels are expected to drop slightly this year.

Several attacks against migrant beggars have been reported in the past week, during which the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats sparked an uproar by displaying a subway ad that apologized for Sweden's "serious problem with forced begging". Endit