Fifteen-year-old boy arrested after 22-year-old woman killed at home for young asylum seekers in Mölndal

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Swedish officials have called for greater security at overcrowded asylum centres a day after the fatal stabbing of an employee at a refugee centre for unaccompanied youths.

The alleged attacker was a young male residing at a centre for youngsters aged 14 to 17 in Mölndal near Gothenburg on Sweden’s west coast. The employee was 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher, according to Swedish media reports, whose family is originally from Lebanon.

Her death has lead to questions about overcrowded conditions inside some centres, with too few adults and employees to take care of children, many traumatised by war.

“I think many people are concerned and worried that there will be more violence since Sweden has received so many unaccompanied children and young people,” prime minister Stefan Löfven stressed after visiting Mölndal.

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“Many of those who come young to Sweden have traumatic experiences, and there are no easy answers.”

Police did not give details about the suspect’s age or nationality but said the man had been arrested for murder. Swedish news agency TT said he was 15 years old.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest This June 10, 2012, photo shows Alexandra Mezher, right, and her friend Lejla Filipovic, left, when they graduated from high school in Boras Sweden. Photograph: Lejla Filipovic/AP

“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,” said police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg.

The attack came as the national police commissioner, Dan Eliasson, requested 4,100 additional officers and support staff to help fight terrorism, carry out migrant deportations and police asylum facilities.

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“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 TT.

According to the Swedish Migration Agency, the number of threats and violent incidents at asylum facilities more than doubled from 2014 to 2015 as Sweden witnessed a record number of migrant arrivals.

In 2014, there were 148 incidents and in 2015 that number more than doubled to 322.

The number of arson attacks targeting asylum shelters has also surged, with at least two dozen centres destroyed or damaged by fire last year.

Also weighing on police resources are border controls introduced on 4 January and the higher national terrorist threat level introduced after the Paris attacks in November.



“Many of the problems we are now facing help to prove the point that Swedish police have long been underfunded and understaffed,” Lena Nitz, the director of the police union, told TT.

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“It is obvious that the migrant situation is a great strain. It has become clear that the situation is completely unsustainable.”

Like the rest of Europe, Sweden has been struggling with the continent’s biggest migration crisis since the second world war.

The country, which has a population of 9.8 million, took in more than 160,000 asylum seekers in 2015, putting it among the EU states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita.

It has since tightened its asylum rules.