Latest news with #Iskef
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Yahoo
One of the victims of Sweden's deadliest mass shooting called his fiancée to say he loved her
OREBRO, Sweden (AP) — Wounded and bleeding, Salim Karim Iskef managed to video-call his fiancée to tell her he loved her one last time before he died this week in what was Sweden's deadliest mass shooting, The 28-year-old asked Kareen Alia to look after his mother and herself before the call ended. There was no answer when she called back, and she later found out he had died of his wounds, one of 10 people killed when a gunman opened fire on Tuesday at the adult education center in the city of Orebro, where Iskef was studying to become a nurse. The couple had recently bought a home and planned to get married this summer. "He had all of these dreams in his heart. Now, unfortunately, all of these dreams are gone. Their light has been put out,' Father Jacob Kasselia, priest of their local Orthodox Christian church, told Swedish broadcaster TV4. Authorities said the shooter, who has not yet been officially identified, was connected to the adult education center where he opened fire with at least one rifle-like weapon and may have attended school there previously. The shooter was later found dead with three guns, 10 empty magazines and a large amount of unused ammunition next to his body. It was not clear how he died, but officials said police did not return his gunfire. Officers found at least five people, all over age 18, with serious gunshot wounds. A sixth person was treated for minor injuries. Investigators have not uncovered a definitive motive behind the bloodshed. Police said there were no warnings beforehand, and they believe the perpetrator acted alone. Authorities said there were no suspected connections to terrorism at this point. 'My whole life was with him' The school, Campus Risbergska, offers primary and secondary educational classes for adults age 20 and older, Swedish-language classes for immigrants, vocational training, and programs for people with intellectual disabilities. It is on the outskirts of Orebro, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Stockholm. Iskef was studying nursing there after serving as a healthcare worker during the COVID-19 pandemic. His family fled Syria between 2014 and 2015 because of its long-running civil war. 'We've lived together our entire lives," his sister Hanan Eskif told TV4. "We worked together, and we studied together, we went to church together. My whole life was with him, how am I supposed to live without him? ' Their family held a memorial service at their Orthodox Christian church, although they hadn't received Iskef's body by late Thursday. 'We keep looking out the window thinking maybe he'll return and knock on the door, and we'll have to open it. We don't sleep, we don't eat, don't drink. Nothing, we just sit and look out,' Eskif told the broadcaster. Guns in Sweden The government and Sweden Democrats on Friday planned to move forward with proposals to tighten gun laws, including restricting access to semi-automatic weapons such as the AR-15, Swedish news agency TT reported. Authorities said the shooter had licenses for four weapons, three of which were found next to his body. Police have seized the fourth. Officials have only said at least one gun was a rifle-like weapon. Currently, in order to possess a firearm legally in Sweden, applicants must obtain a weapon license and demonstrate that it will be used for an acceptable purpose, such as hunting or target shooting, and not be misused. Applicants must also submit previously obtained hunting or target shooting certificates. Hunting certificates require people to pass a training course, while target shooters must be certified as active and experienced members of clubs. In a country of roughly 10.5 million people, there were just over 660,000 registered gun owners at the beginning of 2024, according to the Swedish news agency TT. Those registered owners had some 2 million guns, objects that are considered firearms and weapon parts that require a permit. TT reported that 1.6 million of those guns are registered for hunting, and another 176,000 for target-shooting. All weapons must be stored in secure cabinets approved by the police. Applications for fully automatic weapons or one-handed weapons are only granted for exceptional reasons, and such permits are generally time-limited. Permits are revoked if the weapon is modified to be substantially different from its original function. ___ Dazio reported from Berlin.
CBS News
07-02-2025
- CBS News
Sweden mass shooting victim called fiancée to tell her he loved her one last time
Orebro, Sweden — Wounded and bleeding, Salim Karim Iskef managed to video-call his fiancée to tell her he loved her one last time before he died this week in Sweden's deadliest mass shooting. The 28-year-old asked Kareen Alia to look after his mother and herself before the call ended. There was no answer when she called back, and she later found out he had died of his wounds, one of 10 people killed when a gunman opened fire Tuesday at the adult education center in the city of Orebro, where Iskef was studying to become a nurse. The couple had recently bought a home and planned to get married this summer. "He had all of these dreams in his heart. Now, unfortunately, all of these dreams are gone. Their light has been put out," Father Jacob Kasselia, priest of their local Orthodox Christian church, told Swedish broadcaster TV4. "How am I supposed to live without him?" Authorities said the shooter, who has not yet been officially identified, was connected to the adult education center where he opened fire with at least one rifle-like weapon and may have attended school there previously. The school, Campus Risbergska, offers primary and secondary educational classes for adults aged 20 and older, Swedish-language classes for immigrants, vocational training, and programs for people with intellectual disabilities. It is on the outskirts of Orebro, 125 miles west of Stockholm. Iskef was studying nursing there after serving as a healthcare worker during the COVID-19 pandemic. His family fled Syria between 2014 and 2015 because of its long-running civil war. "We've lived together our entire lives," his sister Hanan Eskif told TV4. "We worked together, and we studied together, we went to church together. My whole life was with him, how am I supposed to live without him?" Their family held a memorial service at their Orthodox Christian church, although they hadn't received Iskef's body by late Thursday. "We keep looking out the window thinking maybe he'll return and knock on the door, and we'll have to open it. We don't sleep, we don't eat, don't drink. Nothing, we just sit and look out," Eskif told the broadcaster. Little new info confirmed on shooter or his motive The shooter was later found dead with three guns, 10 empty magazines and a large amount of unused ammunition next to his body. It was not clear how he died, but officials said police did not return his gunfire, and the local police chief said the day after the attack that there was "a lot to indicate that" the gunman had shot himself. Officers found at least five survivors, all over age 18, with serious gunshot wounds. A sixth person was treated for minor injuries. Investigators have not uncovered a definitive motive behind the bloodshed. Police said there were no warnings beforehand, and they believe the perpetrator acted alone. Authorities said there were no suspected connections to terrorism at this point. Sweden's gun laws The government and the right-wing Sweden Democrats party said Friday that they planned to move forward with proposals to tighten gun laws, including restricting access to semi-automatic weapons such as the AR-15, Swedish news agency TT reported. Authorities said the shooter in Orebro had licenses for four weapons, three of which were found next to his body. Police have seized the fourth. Officials have only said at least one gun was a rifle-like weapon. Currently, Sweden's laws already involve strict licensing for all firearm ownership, with applications made directly to the national police force and prospective applicants required to demonstrate that a weapon it will be used for an acceptable purpose, such as hunting or target shooting, and not be misused. Applicants must also submit previously obtained hunting or target shooting certificates. Hunting certificates require people to pass a training course, while target shooters must be certified as active and experienced members of clubs. In a country of roughly 10.5 million people, there were just over 660,000 registered gun owners at the beginning of 2024, according to the Swedish news agency TT. Those registered owners had some 2 million guns, objects that are considered firearms and weapon parts that require a permit. TT reported that 1.6 million of those guns are registered for hunting, and another 176,000 for target-shooting. All weapons must be stored in secure cabinets approved by the police. Applications for fully automatic weapons or one-handed weapons are only granted for exceptional reasons, and such permits are generally time-limited. Firearm permits are revoked if the weapon is modified to be substantially different from its original function.
Saudi Gazette
07-02-2025
- Saudi Gazette
Sweden's worst mass shooting leaves immigrant community on edge
OREBRO — In the middle of a grand, high-ceilinged church in Orebro, Sweden, Jacob Kasselia, a Syrian Orthodox priest, looked up towards the stained glass windows above him, then back down at his hands. He adjusted the gold cross hanging from his neck."The police say this man acted alone," the priest said. "But this hate, it is coming from somewhere."A member of Kasselia's congregation, 29-year-old Salim Iskef, was among those murdered in Orebro on Tuesday in Sweden's first school shooting and the worst mass shooting in the country's history. The gunman killed 10 students at an adult learning center and then the dead are Syrians and Bosnians, according to residents and the embassies of those countries, but the police in Orebro have not given any details of the victims described Iskef as kind and thoughtful, keen to help other members of the community. He came to Sweden with his mother and sister, the priest said - refugees from Aleppo, where his father was killed in the war. Iskef was studying Swedish at the Risbergska school, the target of Tuesday's attack."He was simply a good man," the priest said. "He did not look for trouble. He showed only goodwill. He was a member of our community."The night after the attack, Kasselia sat with Iskef's family to console them. Iskef was engaged and due to be married this summer. His fiancee Kareen Elia, 24, was "very badly affected", the priest said, and was "going through a very difficult, very dark experience".At a memorial service in Orebro on Thursday night, Elia broke down in screams and tears and had to be carried out of the the days since the shooting, there has been a striking lack of information from the authorities. On Thursday night, police had still not confirmed the identity of the gunman - widely reported by Swedish media to be 35-year-old local Rickard Andersson - nor any details about his motive or the a statement issued early on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the attack, police said the shooter did not appear to be motivated by any ideology. On Thursday, Anna Bergkvist, who is leading the police investigation, appeared to walk the statement back."Why they said that, I cannot comment," she told the BBC. "We are looking at different motives and we will declare it when we have it."Swedish police are usually cautious about naming suspects during an investigation, but the absence of official information has contributed to a feeling of fear and uncertainty among Orebro's immigrant communities over the past few days."We are getting all our information from the media and I don't know why," said Nour Afram, 36, who was inside the Risbergska school when the attack began."We need more information," she said. "We don't know why he did it, why did he target this school? Was he sick or was it something else?"Afram was waiting to go into class when she heard people screaming that there was a shooter - something so unbelievable to her she thought at first it was a prank."We started to run and then I heard the gunshots," she said. "One at first, then tak tak tak - maybe ten shots. I was so scared I felt like my heart stopped in my chest."Afram, who immigrated from Syria to Orebro as a child, said she was afraid for the first time to send her three children to school in Aydin, a 50-year-old Syriac language teacher in Orebro, said he was afraid for the first time for his young students, who are mostly from the Middle East. "We are foreigners, we have to be careful now," he used to have the doors of his classroom and the church building open when he taught. "Now we are closing them," he said. "And yesterday I asked someone to stand outside to prevent anyone we didn't know already from coming in."One of the pupils at the school, 18-year-old Gabriel, said a "nightmare had come true" for Orebro."The problem is we have no motive, only speculation," he said. "A lot of people my age are frightened to go to school, we feel like Sweden has become like America. The things you see on television have happened here."In the absence of any official news about the motive, all that the residents here in Orebro know is that the killer appears to have been a reclusive white Swedish man and that he targeted a school with a large immigrant student Poletti Lundstrom, an academic researcher in racism at Uppsala University, who happens to live just a few minutes from the site of the attack and heard police helicopters fly over his home on Tuesday, said Orebro was facing a "deeply horrible time"."You can really sense it everywhere here, it is affecting everyone," Lundstrom said. "We don't know the motives of the shooter yet, but we are living in a very racist time and this is a school for a lot of immigrants."Attacks like the one at Risbergska were "the outcome of how our society looks at the moment, how our politicians talk, and how we talk about one another", he said."The government and the main opposition support anti-immigrant policies and use anti-immigrant rhetoric," he added. "This is what happens when politicians speak the way they are speaking."At the cordoned-off entrance to Risbergska school early on Thursday morning, people were stopping by to leave flowers, light candles, or simply to stand and take in the scene. From the street, you can clearly see the front door through which the killer was filmed appearing to go from classroom to classroom with a those who came alone and stood for a while by the collection of candles and flowers was the city's mayor, John Johansson, who had made an official visit to the site the day before alongside the prime minister and the king and queen but stopped there again on his way to work on Thursday to pay his respects."I hope that the police will find conclusions soon," Johansson said. "The city needs answers, our society needs answers, and the families of the victims need to know why this happened."But it was not time to "speculate or rush ahead", he said. "We do not want to contribute to any false rumors, and so we hope the police will find answers as early as possible."Tony Estroem, a salesman from Eskilstuna, about 80km from Orebro, also stopped by the school on Thursday morning. "This kind of shooting, at a school, you read about it elsewhere but not in Sweden," he said."It looks to be a Swedish guy, and perhaps that is better than if it had been an immigrant responsible," he added. "Of course it is a terrible event either way, but we do not want to add more fuel to the fire."Police have given out some limited information about their investigation. They said that about 130 officers responded to the shooting in total, and that they were met by an "inferno" in the school. They said that they believed the gunman acted members, former school friends and neighbors have told Swedish media he had become a recluse in recent years and may have suffered with psychological have been complaints about the handling of the case. The Bosnian ambassador Bojan Sosic, who also visited the site of the shooting, learned from residents that a Bosnian was among the dead."I find it odd, to say the least, that the police chooses to withhold information that pertains to foreign citizens from respective embassies," he including members of the Syrian community, said they trusted the police were doing the right thing and only hoped to learn more soon. Kasselia, the Syrian Orthodox priest, said that the wider community "does not know what the police are thinking, but we trust that they have their own plan".Hundreds of people came to Kasselia's church on Thursday night from the Syrian, Turkish, Iraqi and other migrant communities. A picture of Salim Iskef, one of the shooting's victims, sat on an easel. Children from the congregation sung hymns. Iskef's family, sitting in a pew near the front, were consumed by is difficult to understand why these sorts of attacks happen even when the motive is known. Without it, it is even more confounding. A few hours before the memorial service began, Kasselia had been sitting in a pew in his empty church, trying to make sense of it."People die, of course. They become sick, they have some accident," he said. "But this, how can we understand this? To be shot dead in a school. We could not dream of this. We cannot even describe it. Why?"There was some comfort in hearing from the police that the gunman acted alone, Kasselia said. It left less anxiety of another attack. "But this man had something in his heart, some kind of hate, that he gathered from somewhere," the priest said. "We cannot say there are not others." — BBC
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Yahoo
Swedish mass shooting victims include Christians who fled Syria
By Johan Ahlander OREBRO, Sweden (Reuters) -Ten years ago, Salim Iskef fled Syria - where Islamic State militants had killed his father - for Sweden, only to be gunned down this week by an unemployed Swedish man with no apparent ideological motive. The 29-year-old victim was one of several members of Sweden's Syriac-speaking community caught up in Tuesday's attack at an adult education school in Orebro, central Sweden - which left 11 people dead, including the attacker, and many injured. He was due to get married in the summer and had recently bought a house with his fiancée. "He had so many beautiful plans and so many beautiful dreams," Jacob Kaselia, a friend of the family and priest at St. Mary's church in Orebro, told Reuters after leading a memorial service for Iskef in front of about 400 people on Thursday. "All gone in a second." The Syriac-speaking community, a Christian group with roots in the Middle East, has almost 200,000 members in Sweden, of whom 5,000 live in Orebro, the leader of the Syriac centre in Orebro said. Another Syriac speaker was among those hurt and two others told Reuters they were there when the gunman opened fire before apparently turning one of his weapons on himself. Swedish police said people of various ages, genders and nationalities were killed and injured in the shooting, which they described as an 'inferno', but have not yet disclosed all their names. The Risbergska adult education centre, where the attack took place, offers adult courses and Swedish language classes for immigrants. Police are investigating reports the attacker may have been a student at the school at some point. After Iskef was shot, he called his mother and fiancée to tell them that he loved them. That was the last they heard from him. "His fiancée is totally destroyed," said Kaselia. "We try to help her, but honestly, it's very hard." Iskef was from Aleppo in Syria, where the Syriac-speaking minority has been targeted by Islamic State jihadists during the civil war that began in 2011. Sweden, although accustomed to gang violence, has not had school shootings on this scale before. Merwa, who was a close friend of Iskef and went to school with him every day, was shot at by the gunman. She was unharmed and used her friend's scarf to try to stop the bleeding of a man who was shot in front of her. "We're still in shock. We didn't think this could happen in Sweden, and especially in school," she told Reuters, adding it is unlikely that she will go back to school. "I really don't think so," she said. Police said on Thursday they are yet to find a motive for the gunman, identified as Rickard Andersson by Reuters and Swedish media. "Why did he do this? What was in his brain? We don't know," said priest Kaselia. "I feel sorry for him. We must pray that the Lord forgives him."
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Yahoo
Sweden's worst mass shooting leaves immigrant community on edge
In the middle of a grand, high-ceilinged church in Orebro, Sweden, Jacob Kasselia, a Syrian orthodox priest, looked up towards the stained glass windows above him, then back down at his hands. He adjusted the gold cross hanging from his neck. "The police say this man acted alone," the priest said. "But this hate, it is coming from somewhere." A member of Kasselia's congregation, 29-year-old Salim Iskef, was among those murdered in Orebro on Tuesday in Sweden's first school shooting and the worst mass shooting in the country's history. The gunman killed 10 students at an adult learning centre and then himself. Among the dead are Syrians and Bosnians, according to residents and the embassies of those countries, but the police in Orebro have not given any details of the victims publicly. Kasselia described Iskef as kind and thoughtful, keen to help other members of the community. He came to Sweden with his mother and sister, the priest said - refugees from Aleppo, where his father was killed in the war. Iskef was studying Swedish at the Risbergska school, the target of Tuesday's attack. "He was simply a good man," the priest said. "He did not look for trouble. He showed only goodwill. He was a member of our community." The night after the attack, Kasselia sat with Iskef's family to console them. Iskef was engaged and due to be married this summer. His fiancee Kareen Elia, 24, was "very badly affected", the priest said, and was "going through a very difficult, very dark experience". At a memorial service in Orebro on Thursday night, Elia broke down in screams and tears and had to be carried out of the church. In the days since the shooting, there has been a striking lack of information from the authorities. On Thursday night, police had still not confirmed the identity of the gunman - widely reported by Swedish media to be 35-year-old local Rickard Andersson - nor any details about his motive or the victims. In a statement issued early on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the attack, police said the shooter did not appear to be motivated by any ideology. On Thursday, Anna Bergkvist, who is leading the police investigation, appeared to walk the statement back. "Why they said that, I cannot comment," she told the BBC. "We are looking at different motives and we will declare it when we have it." Swedish police are usually cautious about naming suspects during an investigation, but the absence of official information has contributed to a feeling of fear and uncertainty among Orebro's immigrant communities over the past few days. "We are getting all our information from the media and I don't know why," said Nour Afram, 36, who was inside the Risbergska school when the attack began. "We need more information," she said. "We don't know why he did it, why did he target this school? Was he sick or was it something else?" Afram was waiting to go into class when she heard people screaming that there was a shooter - something so unbelievable to her she thought at first it was a prank. "We started to run and then I heard the gunshots," she said. "One at first, then tak tak tak - maybe ten shots. I was so scared I felt like my heart stopped in my chest." Afram, who immigrated from Syria to Orebro as a child, said she was afraid for the first time to send her three children to school in Sweden. Zaki Aydin, a 50-year-old Syriac language teacher in Orebro, said he was afraid for the first time for his young students, who are mostly from the Middle East. "We are foreigners, we have to be careful now," he said. Aydin used to have the doors of his classroom and the church building open when he taught. "Now we are closing them," he said. "And yesterday I asked someone to stand outside to prevent anyone we didn't know already from coming in." One of the pupils at the school, 18-year-old Gabriel, said a "nightmare had come true" for Orebro. "The problem is we have no motive, only speculation," he said. "A lot of people my age are frightened to go to school, we feel like Sweden has become like America. The things you see on television have happened here." In the absence of any official news about the motive, all that the residents here in Orebro know is that the killer appears to have been a reclusive white Swedish man and that he targeted a school with a large immigrant student base. Tomas Poletti Lundstrom, an academic researcher in racism at Uppsala University, who happens to live just a few minutes from the site of the attack and heard police helicopters fly over his home on Tuesday, said Orebro was facing a "deeply horrible time". "You can really sense it everywhere, it is affecting everyone," Lundstrom said. "We don't know the motives of the shooter yet, but we are living in a very racist time and this is a school for a lot of immigrants." Shootings like the one at Risbergska were "the outcome of how our society looks at the moment, how our politicians talk, and how we talk about one another", he said. "This is what happens when politicians speak the way they are speaking at the moment." At the cordoned off entrance to Risbergska school early on Thursday morning, people were stopping by to leave flowers, light candles, or simply to stand and take in the scene. From the street, you can clearly see the front door through which the killer was filmed appearing to go from classroom to classroom with a rifle. Among those who came alone and stood for a while by the collection of candles and flowers was the city's mayor, John Johansson, who had made an official visit to the site the day before alongside the prime minister and the king and queen but stopped there again on his way to work on Thursday to pay his respects. "I hope that the police will find conclusions soon," Johansson said. "The city needs answers, our society needs answers, and the families of the victims need to know why this happened." But it was not time to "speculate or rush ahead", he said. "We do not want to contribute to any false rumours, and so we hope the police will find answers as early as possible." Tony Estroem, a salesman from Eskilstuna, about 80km from Orebro, also stopped by the school on Thursday morning. "This kind of shooting, at a school, you read about it elsewhere but not in Sweden," he said. "It looks to be a Swedish guy, and perhaps that is better than if it had been an immigrant responsible," he added. "Of course it is a terrible event either way, but we do not want to add more fuel to the fire." Police have given out some limited information about their investigation. They said that about 130 officers responded to the shooting in total, and that they were met by an "inferno" in the school. They said that they believe the gunman acted alone. Family members, former school friends and neighbours have told Swedish media he had become a recluse in recent years and may have suffered with psychological issues. There have been complaints about the handling of the case. The Bosnian ambassador Bojan Sosic, who also visited the site of the shooting, learned from residents that a Bosnian was among the dead. "I find it odd, to say the least, that the police chooses to withhold information that pertains to foreign citizens from respective embassies," he said. Others, including members of the Syrian community, said they trusted the police were doing the right thing and only hoped to learn more soon. Kasselia, the Syrian Orthodox priest, said that the wider community "does not know what the police are thinking, but we trust that they have their own plan". Hundreds of people came to Kasselia's church on Thursday night from the Syrian, Turkish, Iraqi and other migrant communities. A picture of Salim Iskef, one of the shooting's victims, sat on an easel. Children from the congregation sung hymns. Iskef's family, sitting in a pew near the front, were consumed by grief. It is difficult to understand why these sorts of attacks happen even when the motive is known. Without it, it is even more confounding. A few hours before the memorial service began, Kasselia had been sitting in a pew in his empty church, trying to make sense of it. "People die, of course. They become sick, they have some accident," he said. "But this, how can we understand this? To be shot dead in a school. We could not dream of this. We cannot even describe it. Why?" There was some comfort in hearing from the police that the gunman acted alone, Kasselia said. It left less anxiety of another attack. "But this man had something in his heart, some kind of hate, that he gathered from somewhere," the priest said. "We cannot say there are not others." Additional reporting by Phelan Chatterjee. Photographs by Joel Gunter. Syrians and Bosnian among victims of gunman's attack on Swedish school 'There was blood everywhere' - witnesses shocked after Sweden school shooting Sweden searches for answers after country's deadliest shooting
