By Thomas O'Reilley
The city's rate of gun violence is thirty times that of London on a per capita basis.
Sweden’s third-largest city scored higher than parts of the Middle East in an international ranking of the world’s most perilous cities this week, with Malmö now being listed higher than Pakistan’s Karachi, or Baghdad.
Already notorious for its high rate of migration-driven crime, Malmö was listed 76th internationally among crime-ridden urban areas, with a safety rating slightly worse than the Iranian capital Tehran in statistics compiled by the online cost-of-living database Numbeo.
The Swedish capital of Stockholm, along with the country’s second-largest city, Gothenburg, also made the list at 154th and 157th, respectively, while Marseilles claimed the title of most dangerous European city in 40th place. The Mediterranean port city has been afflicted by gang feuds for most of the last year between rival narcotics gangs.
Earlier this month, Malmö became the site of a major security operation by the Swedish state to protect the annual Eurovision song competition from a potential Islamist attack and to shield the Israeli participant from pro-Palestine demonstrators. Horrified locals have also described celebratory scenes on the streets of Malmö upon news of Hamas’ terror attack on Israel.
Even the Swedish police found themselves attacked in Malmö in September during battles with rioting young Muslims over the burning of the Quran by anti-Islamic activist Salwan Momika. Statistics from 2023 described the city as having a rate of gun violence thirty times what is seen in London.
Criminal gangs have been responsible for precipitously rising crime rates in the formerly homogenous country. In September of last year, PM Ulf Kristersson in a rare televised speech to the nation said that
The fact of the matter is that there were many of us who saw this coming, and who warned about it. Serious, organised crime has emerged over a decade. In ten years, deadly gun-related violence has tripled. We have been brought to this point by political cluelessness and willful ignorance. We have come to where we are thanks to irresponsible immigration policies and failed integration.
Malmö, a harbour town historically largely focused on industry, reinvented itself after the economic downturn that started in the 1970s. While immigrants have been an important part of the city at least since World War II, most 20th century immigrants came or were recruited to fill needs on the labour market—not always a popular notion among trade unions—and largely came from Nordic and southern European countries with fairly similar cultural values.
During the migrant crisis 2015-16, Sweden took in more migrants per capita than any other EU country, every week seeing over 9,000 asylum seekers mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
Today, people from 186 different countries live in the city, with the largest immigrant groups originating in Iraq and Syria. More than half of the population (54%) has an immigrant background (either born in another country or having parents born outside of Sweden) and about one-third are foreign-born. Native Swedes are an ethnic minority in the city’s school system, with about two-thirds of students being of foreign origin.
Pictured: the armorial bearings of the City of Malmö
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