A group of masked men handed out leaflets and assaulted people who looked like immigrants in Stockholm, Sweden.
Around 100 of the masked men roamed through the capital’s main train station, wearing all-black balaclavas and armbands, on Friday evening.
They “gathered with the purpose of attacking refugee children,” Stockholm police spokesperson Towe Hagg said, reported the Independent.
“I saw maybe three people who were beaten. That was no football brawl or something similar. They targeted migrants. I was quite scared and ran away,” an eyewitness told the Aftonbladet newspaper.
Before the attacks, the group handed out leaflets that read “It is enough now!” referring to the recent killing of Alexandra Mezher by a refugee who appears older than his claimed age.
The text also said that the group was ready to give “the North African street children who are roaming around” the “punishment they deserve.”
Four of the group have been arrested---three with wearing masks in public and another for that as well as assaulting a police officer.
The Swedish Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi group, said in a statement after the attacks that they had “cleaned up criminal immigrants from North Africa that are housed in the area around the Central Station.”
“These criminal immigrants have robbed and molested Swedes for a long time,” the movement said.
“Police have clearly shown that they lack the means to stave off their rampage, and we now see no other alternative than to ourselves hand out the punishments they deserve.”
Football “firm” DFG later took credit for the attack, reported the Daily Mail.
After Mezher’s murder, the country’s prime minister Stefan Lofven visited the town in which it happened and said: “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. Many of those who come young to Sweden have traumatic experiences, and there are no easy answers.”
The Guardian noted that Sweden received 160,000 arrivals last year, but numbers have dropped since photo ID checks were introduced this month.
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