Terrible news from Sweden

[JaneJefferson]

This case is so sad. A young care worker has been killed and she was alone in the child refugee centre at night. I can't believe she was left alone to care for 11 refugees after all the recent concerns. There are various news articles about it on the web.

Pausing - thank you. You have articulated everything I feel about these threads.

I think that one of the things that is significant is that this crime was committed by a guest of the country. Someone who had been welcomed and was being fed and housed by the host country. It appears to be yet another incidence of an inability to be on their 'best behaviour' whilst waiting for their asylum claims to be processed.

An unnecessary death is shocking - but this apparent indifference to their future prospects and to the hospitality they are in receipt of is also shocking.

Good posts Pausing.

No the issue here is that often unacompied minors are often in fact grown men pretending to be 15 to gain asylum

That's why many foster carers in Kent now will not take teenage unacompined minors

We don't know it was a grown man. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility for it to have been a teenage boy.

Do you think if the perpetrator had been 15, she would have magically been able to overpower him?

As for the "guest of the country" nonsense, he's a 15 year old in institutionalised care.

As for the "guest of the country" nonsense,

Pardon? Who are you to dismiss my observation/thoughts as nonsense?

And you know he was 15 how exactly

Presenting to be 15 when actually is a grown man is well documented in the and in the abroad because that is witch all services kick in and you cannot be deported

This is a well known tactic and one the reasons many no longer claim to be minors in France because unlike us they do bone density scans a rigorous medical checks

You can no more say this lad was 15 than the person asked my nephew for ID to buy fags when he's actually 24

"Terrible news from Sweden"

it is terrible news and, although to be expected, it horrible how the liberal left and bigoted right are both spinning their narrow minded narratives around this sad and probably avoidable murder of Alexandra Mezher in order to promote and defend their political views.

Dan Eliasson the Swedish National Police Commissioner (and Minister for Home Affairs?) states in a press conference that "he [Eliasson] was 'distressed' by the tragedy, but added: 'Under what circumstances has he grown up? What is the trauma he carries? This entire immigration crisis shows how unfair life is in many parts of the world.'"

This stament is disgraceful. Most half-educated people are well aware that 'life is unfair in many parts of the world', what a patronising and inappropriate statement in the context of this young women's murder, why should she and her family have to pay for this 'unfairness'? This was a woman who dedicated her intelligence, her compassion, her life to help those she saw as less fortunate than herself. Maybe she empathised with these people as she herself had bee a young migrant at one point in her life (I believe her family are originally from Lebanon). How utterly inappropriate and unprofessional of Eliasson to focus on the 'sad state of thew world' as an 'explanation' for her death.

• Eliasson has, at this pint in time, no idea if this man was traumatised or had been treated more unfairly than other young people as the true identity of this individual is unknown, so it's pure speculation. His job is to ensure the crime is solved not to propagate views on an 'unfair' world.

• Even if this young man had been traumatised (to what degree, how, we don't know anything about him) it would be totally wrong to comment on this in his first public statement on the death of Alexandra. Her poor family. Following his logic, now that the young woman's family are traumatised, will they get sympathy if they go and kill others? Well they could be forgiven for it accruing to Eliasson's views.

Eliasson's role as a Police Commissioner ought to be to ensure crimes are solved and safety for all Swedish civilians is ensured. But no, he has an agenda to push, which is pro-migration.

This man is known for his left-wing permissive agenda regarding migrants. He is responsible for the cover up of the mass groping at the Swedish We Are Sthlm music festival where police and organisers had a difficult time containing the group sexual assaults of young migrant men on young girls at the concert. This didn't just occur at one event but at all Sthlm concerts over the last three years. It has been suggested that police officers in Sweden do not dare make any references to the origins of the perpetartors as that would not be in line with their top boss' agenda and their careers in the police would be at risk if they don't fall into line with Eliasson's ideology.

This is utterly wrong and I hope that this man will be have be held accountable for his inapproriate conduct. slim chance

And wrt migration, Europe's politicians and burocracy are clearly not up to the challenge. The leadership around Europe is weak and largely incompetent.

I agree that Alexandra Mezher should have never been expected to do a shift with no backup, especially not a night shift. The problem is that neither Germany nor Sweden have enough resources to deal with the influx of migrants so they rely on the goodwill of volunteers and a few dedicated professionals such as Alexandra. A lot of these volunteers are caring young women who themselves, it could be argued are vulnerable citizens. Sweden failed this dedicated and selfless young woman. RIP.

Following his logic, now that the young woman's family are traumatised, will they get sympathy if they go and kill others? Well they could be forgiven for it accruing to Eliasson's views.

^ YY.

It has been suggested that police officers in Sweden do not dare make any references to the origins of the perpetartors as that would not be in line with their top boss' agenda and their careers in the police would be at risk if they don't fall into line with Eliasson's ideology

Terrifying

And wrt migration, Europe's politicians and burocracy are clearly not up to the challenge. The leadership around Europe is weak and largely incompetent.

100% ^ this.

Great post, thank you.

It is NOT victim blaming to say that she should never have been in that situation and/or that she should have had access to some kind of immediate panic button, it's simple safeguarding. If it was a six foot burly man, he shouldn't have been left alone in that situation. Her age and gender are irrelevant to that part, although, sadly, they may have made her more vulnerable.

It's the murderer's fault - absolutely. 100% undisputed. But the fact remains that safeguarding guidance exists for a reason, and if anybody thinks that a single person is sufficient supervision for a group of traumatised teenagers, some of whom might not even be teenagers, then they are frankly barking.

Posted too soon. I do understand that the management of refugee accommodation is at breaking point and it's an extremely difficult situation to manage.

I really wonder just how Sweden is going to turn the situation around.

Yesterday there was another violent incidence involving unaccompanied teenage migrants in Sweden:

asylum staff attacked by rioting youth

"Staff at a home for refugee children in southern Sweden were forced to barricade themselves in a room on Wednesday night, after 19 young men in their care rioted and attacked them with weapons. The employees were only freed when a squad of police cars arrived at the centre and arrested the alleged ringleaders behind the riot.

“There was a violent riot at the accommodation centre for unaccompanied refugee children,” Ingela Crona from the local police in Kalmar told Expressen. “They broke loose, and a total of 19 people banded together and did this.”

"One of them was refused to buy sweets and became furious with the staff member. He collected together around fifteen friends and the staff were forced to shut themselves in while they broke windows and did what they liked."

And a north african teenager has run away from a detention centre after he had been convicted of raping a Swedish woman last summer.

800 north african young men are sleeping touch in Stockholm. I mean seriously, in this day and age of biometrics, digital system etc. why was this mass migration not manage in an orderly (or as orderly as possible) manner? They should all have been dental checked to ascertain their age, finger printed and their DNA information stored. How can European nations states control their countries if they don't know who lives there, who people are, etc. it is just too odd.

Yes, it is wrong to minimise the victim's murder to talk about some speculative trauma that the perpetrator may or may not have suffered. Incredibly insensitive and inappropriate and I hope this guy cops some flak for it. The focus absolutely needs to be on finding and punishing her killer, and on what is going to be done re safety in these situations to ensure that such an avoidable tragedy doesn't happen to anyone else.

" But the fact remains that safeguarding guidance exists for a reason, and if anybody thinks that a single person is sufficient supervision for a group of traumatised teenagers, some of whom might not even be teenagers, then they are frankly barking."

I agree, but how is Sweden going to staff and pay for all this? They have taken on way more migrants that they could possibly cope with or pay for, and now the system is slowly starting to collapse.

Looking at Sweden's kindhearted but utterly reckless and naive policiesand looking at the witless comments made by the policemen quoted abovethe main thought that occurs to me is "No society which actually wished to survive would behave this way."

Who would ever have thunk?Safe beautiful Scandinavia ??
Oh well...

Dsis was doing supply teaching in a school in Kent. She was teaching year 11s, so 15/16, and a number of the boys were asylum seekers from foster care. Dsis said that not only were these males clearly about ten years older than they said, but that they were constantly making lewd gestures and comments at the girls in the class and even at dsis.

She went to HoD to make a safeguarding complaint, but was told that there was nothing they could do as there was no proof that they were not the age they said they were.

a TA working with a refugee in a primary school was groped as they sat in a small side room with the door open just off my classroom. I called the Board of Edu and spoke to the person in charge of refugee placement and he was removed immediately and placed in a secondary school. Your dd needs to go above the head of this HoD as yes something can be done about it as sexual harassment is illegal. Dentists can establish age from teeth development= they can lie thru their teeth, but the teeth don't lie. And don't forget the police if the edu authorities do not act.

heard on today's news that sweden has decided to send 60,000 [ cd be another 0] 'refugees back in chartered planes over next year or so.

Dsis said that not only were these males clearly about ten years older than they said, but that they were constantly making lewd gestures and comments at the girls in the class and even at dsis.

Surely if they are bullying and sexually harassing the women and girls the school can act whatever age they are? That should not be acceptable anywhere.

latest news flash=80,000 to be deported from Sweden.

RhodeaBull so already the girls and women's rights are taking second place to the rights of men to pass themselves off as boys.

I thought it was just the Swedes who had gone down this route. Unbelievable.

Sounds like the school is scared to do anything just like some in Rotherham were.

I wonder what would be a good, constructive strategy to welcome unaccompanied child refugees.

The least we can expect from our government is to bring these children here in a way that will be acceptable to the local population and make the children feel safe and welcome and enable them to settle in for as long as it is needed.

My ideas would be as follows:

• Collect the youngsters from the camps in Turkey or directly from Syria if possible.

• give the most vulnerable children priority (very young children, disabled)

• Ratio of 50/50 boys and girls or possibly skewed in favour of girls maybe 60/40.

• Keep siblings together where possible.

• Provide english language tuition from the word go

• from the offset, lay down the laws in terms of code of conduct, if necessary using visual aids such as cartoon etc. this would have to be age appropriate.

• If it is possible to check children's age through teeth examination this should be done in the country of origin.

• finger prints and DNA records should be kept, also for the child's safety, if they are very young. everything needs to be properly conducted, ID records kept etc.

• from the offset educate teenager and pre-teens about respect and equality and make it very, very clear what constitutes sexual harassment and that it is unacceptable in the UK.

• if possible, foster parents should be found and children spread across the country so that there are no 'hot spots' and they can integrate. If the children have relatives in the UK i imagine they would be taken care by them but it should still be an arrangement which is contractual and monitored by SS.

• provide designated post-trauma counselling possibly with the help of volunteers but safeguard volunteers. The government will have to fund all this and they must provide enough funding in order to minimise the impact on local communities and integrate the children safely. I suspect that if the children who come here are very young, they are also vulnerable to being abused. This must be prevented.

• I suspect the Muslim community will be very keen to help and foster many of the children? If this is so, these foster families should still undergo vetting and monitoring to ensure the child's safety and good upbringing, i.e not by families where they can be radicalised.

I have no idea how feasible any of this is but for the safeguarding of refugee children as well as safeguarding of native children in the UK the least our government can do is have a very tight and smart plan in place.

What I do not want to see is the most vulnerable members of our society for example young girls in schools (as in Kent) or young girls in foster care who have already been traumatised by life events be sexually harassed by teenage boys who pretend to be much younger than they are and who have not been taught that girls in the UK are to be treated with respect and that sexual harassment will be come down on with a ton of bricks.

"Surely if they are bullying and sexually harassing the women and girls the school can act whatever age they are? That should not be acceptable anywhere."

Agree, venus. I was repeatedly sexually assaulted at 15-ish by boys my age (white, British, Christian, before anyone asks), who used to gang up and "bundle" girls in the school stairwells, grabbing tits and bum. It was few years ago but hardly the 1950s.

I'd love to think that behaviour doesn't go on any more but I'm not optimistic. I'd hoped school management had changed too, but doesn't sound like it: no policy to deal with sexual harassment except wait for people to leave? Fuxache.

"Agree, venus. I was repeatedly sexually assaulted at 15-ish by boys my age (white, British, Christian, before anyone asks), who used to gang up and "bundle" girls in the school stairwells, grabbing tits and bum. It was few years ago but hardly the 1950s."

Thats awful Pausing . I am under no illusion that homegrown boys are all angels who treat girls like goddesses. And I'm sure that some girls are equally taunting.

In actual fact, maybe this whole situation is a beautiful opportunity for the government to instruct schools to promote good behaviour in middle school, addressing cyber bullying, Porn etc. not once or twice during a half hearted assembly but as a firm strategy.

There should be guidance, and campaigns in school and boys and girls should learn how to behave and what to expect as they are growing into adults and future citizens. They should be given tools and boundaries.