Panic as school evacuated after police find two hand grenades | World | News
A school with 800 students has been evacuated after the discovery of two hand grenades in the nearby Hässleholmen neighborhood of Sweden. The alarm sounded at 7.39am on Wednesday when police received reports of a suspected dangerous object at a residential address, prompting swift action to secure the area.
Officers immediately established a 100-meter cordon around the site, urging residents to shelter in place as the national bomb squad raced to the scene. Fredrik Svedemyr, police press spokesperson, emphasising the need for public cooperation, said: “We need to handle this in a safe manner. We are of course doing this out of caution while we deal with these hand grenades.”
“We are now handling two suspected hand grenades. We do not yet know if they are live or not.”
Nearby Bodaskolan, a comprehensive F-9 school, was fully evacuated at police request, with students, teachers, and parents barred from leaving until the threat cleared.
School administrator Susanne Karlsson reassured: “All students, parents, and teachers have been informed… Staff are circulating… Everything according to our routines.”
No injuries were reported, and the motive behind the grenades remains under investigation, with bomb disposal experts on the scene.
Sweden, frequently envied for its high living standards and progressive ideals, has been dubbed the “bombing capital of Europe” amid a surge in gang-fueled explosions and shootings.
In a BBC documentary aired earlier this year, journalist Simon Reeve lays bare the crisis: “What’s been happening here is completely staggering. There have been hundreds of shootings. Hand grenades have been thrown into buildings.”
The violence, described as a “low-intensity conflict,” stems from drug turf wars where teenage recruits—often as young as 13—deploy hand grenades and improvised bombs fashioned from thermos flasks.
Statistics paint a dire picture: 129 bomb detonations in 2024, with 27 blasts in January 2025 alone. Shootings hit 270 last year, causing 44 deaths and 57 injuries, mostly in migrant-heavy communities.
Sweden’s gun murder rate in Stockholm now dwarfs London’s by 30 times, tripling over the past decade.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson vows a fierce crackdown: “We are fighting a war against gang crime, and we are going to push back hard.”
Malmö police report a “rapidly increasing” influx of explosives since 2018, with up to 1,200 child “foot soldiers” ensnared by gangs exploiting lenient youth laws.
Mr Reeve attributed much to integration failures after waves of refugees—over 100,000 from the Balkans and hundreds of thousands from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan—strained the welfare state, saying: “There has definitely been a failure of integration.”
