An eight-year-old British boy was killed after a hand grenade was thrown into his bedroom as part of an underworld feud involving members of a Somali crime gang in Sweden.
Yuusuf Warsame, from Birmingham, was sleeping in the apartment in the working class Biskopsgarden in Gothenburg when the explosive was tossed through the window and detonated.
Investigating police believe the house was targeted as part of a feud involving members of the Somali underworld.
His father Abdiwahid Warsame today confirmed his son, who was visiting relatives in Sweden, had died in the attack, which is being treated as a murder.
Paying tribute to his son he said: ‘He was a lovely boy, a beautiful child. He was so well liked at school and really worked on his education.
‘He wanted to do well in life and not make bad decisions.
‘He was so well behaved, if he saw someone dropping rubbish in the street he couldn’t understand it. He would say: ‘Why are they doing that?’
‘He loved swimming, he was the strongest swimmer. He didn’t like football, swimming was his sport. He loved to play tennis as well.
‘He was just on holiday with his mum and his two brothers.
‘We don’t know why it happened yet, we are waiting for more information.
‘I will be flying out there to find out what has happened. ‘He was just a normal boy with his education ahead of him.’
The father-of-seven said two other people were injured in the blast.
Yuusuf was born in Birmingham and went to Nelson Mandela Primary School in Sparkhill.
His parents, who have Dutch passports, and moved to the UK in 2001 own the Tawfiq Halal Meat and Grocery Shop in the city’s Whitmore Road.
There were at least five children and a number of adults in the apartment when the device exploded.
But another family member said: ‘The room Yuusuf was in when the attack happened, was also occupied by our mother, sister and youngest brother.
‘It is a miracle none of them were badly injured, they only sustained minor injuries.’
A police spokesman said: ‘One of the people registered at this address is a person convicted by a district court for murder.’
The murder and last night’s attack are both believed to be part of an ongoing feud involving members of the Somali community.
In March 2015, armed men burst into a pub in the Biskopsgarden neighbourhood, gunning down a man known to police and an innocent bystander in a spray of bullets.
Eight people were convicted earlier this month for the attack, and handed sentences ranging from seven years to life in prison.
According to local newspaper Goteborgs-Posten, which conducted a lengthy investigation of the vendetta, the pub shooting spree was the culmination of several violent incidents between rival gangs over the drug market.
While Sweden is generally a peaceful, safe country with low crime rates, police have had difficulty addressing violence in poorer neighbourhoods in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo.
In recent years, there have been grenade attacks, shootings and incidents of car arson.
The issue has been one of the main topics of Sweden’s political debate this summer, as cars have been torched in the neighbourhoods on an almost nightly basis.
The centre-right opposition has called for 2,000 more police officers to be hired, while the leftwing government has proposed a series of crime prevention measures.
Daily Mail
