Published 2023-09-21 21:21
Do you know how how thin is a 13 year old boy’s wrist? How disproportionately large are the ears and feet? Cheeks smooth without pimples and stubble. The voice is still bright, or as embarrassingly difficult to control as it becomes in the goal break.
13-year-old boys are so big and so small and today I can’t close my eyes without seeing Milo’s face in front of me.
Milo who was 13 and disappeared. Milo who was found shot in the head in a wooded area.
Milo, who didn’t have time to live and grow to be as lanky as 14-year-old boys become.
I close my eyes and i think his eyebrows look exactly like my little boys eyebrows.
I close my eyes and see two other boys in front of me, they are 14 years old and have been hired to carry out missions for Rawa Majid’s Foxtrot network. When they failed to complete the tasks, they were allegedly tortured to death to set an example for other children, as if to say: that’s what can happen if you don’t do as we say.
When Einar was shot in his head he was 19 years old. So young and now the dead are even younger.
Boys’ bodies scattered in forests, executed and hidden in bushes. It must never be normal. May there be big headlines forever. May we cry every time it happens.
A few days ago Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer summoned the Council against Organized Crime to talk about the horrific developments of the last two weeks. He said that it is “not an option to do what we have done so far”.
So, what is the alternative?
That the police have become better and more gang criminals are behind bars is one thing – stopping the influx of children into gangs is another.
In Haninge municipality, where I myself live, you can see that a record number of (and increasingly younger) children are being recruited – and at a furious pace.
In an interview with DN, Anneli Lindqvist, responsible for dropout operations within Haninge municipality, says that “the situation has worsened 100 percent in the last two years”. Anders Bolund, who works to seek out and help young people with criminal risk behavior in Haninge, says in the same interview that they lack a method for working with very young people, “it takes time to change”.
I do not want to that it will take time. I’m panicing. I can’t stand the thought of boys being lowered into graves.
Children in our socio-economically vulnerable areas die while the politicians talk and gather strength and argue. I understand that it is difficult and that it will take time BUT I CAN’T STAND IT!
The Prime Minister says he is at a loss for words. It’s just as good. Everything the politicians say and do still sounds so banal when a 13-year-old has been murdered.
