Innocent boy caught up in gang warfare in Sweden

An eight-year-old boy who was killed on Monday in an explosion in Gothenburg could be the latest innocent victim of the city's gang wars.

The boy is the second child in nearly a year to be caught in violence between criminal gangs. He died when a hand grenade was thrown into the window of an apartment in the Biskopsgarden suburb of Gothenburg, Sweden's second largest city.

According to the police, there were several children in the apartment, which was destroyed in the powerful explosion. The incident happened around 3 a.m.(0100 GMT) on Monday and police suspect that it may have been a revenge action in response to a shootout last year where two people were killed and eight were wounded. Several innocent standers-by were injured in that shooting, too.

It is unusual for innocent people, and especially children, to be caught up in gang warfare in Sweden, but there are fears that the gangs are becoming more ruthless and more ready to take their conflicts to the streets and other places were standers-by can be affected, Swedish media report.

In June last year, a four-year-old girl was on her way home from a fishing trip with her father in Gothenburg when a car bomb detonated and killed her. That bomb, too, was linked to criminal gangs. Endit