STOCKHOLM, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- More than 700 shootings have occurred in the vicinity of Swedish schools in the last three years, Swedish Television (SVT) reported on Monday.
In that period, 196,000 children aged between 7 and 16 attend a school where one or several shootings have been recorded within 500 meters of the school premises, SVT said citing an analysis published by statistics company Infostat.
This corresponds to 16 percent of all children in compulsory school, but in and around the capital Stockholm and the city of Malmo, nearly half of the children attend schools around which shootings have been recorded, SVT said.
In Stockholm, the figure is 47 percent and in Malmo 45 percent. In Sodertalje, some 29 km southwest of the capital, the proportion is even higher, 54 percent.
Last year, 344 shootings were recorded in the country, according to the Swedish Police Authority. Of these, 45 resulted in fatalities.
Most of the shootings are believed to be gang-related and this year is even worse than the last, according to the Swedish Police Authority. Up until Nov. 15, 360 shootings had resulted in 57 fatalities. Ninety-eight of the victims were wounded but survived.
The fact that most of the gang members involved in the shootings are in their teens or 20s can explain why shootings near schools have become so common, an expert told SVT.
"When there are more shootings, it also gets closer to schools. The young people know the environment and know where to hide weapons or how to escape the scene as quickly as possible, as it is their home turf," Sven Granath, a criminologist at the Swedish Police Authority, told SVT.
Even though most of the shootings in SVT's survey have taken place outside school hours, many children are still affected by the violence, he told SVT.
"It is a problem that shootings occur at all and that the places where the violence occurs are so close. It creates a lot of insecurity and can also result in a sense of injustice, as some pupils may see shootings more often than others," Granath told SVT.
Studies conducted in the United States and Mexico have shown that gang-related violence can harm children's future, as they become less focused in school with deteriorating results, SVT reported.
This may also be the case in Sweden, an expert told SVT.
"Many of the children I have met found it harder to focus when a shooting had occurred in the area," Jonas Lindback, a doctoral student in child and youth studies at Gothenburg University who has studied the everyday lives of schoolchildren, told SVT.
"And if you don't study, you risk ending up 'in the street' -- a life most describe as a blind alley."
