Deaths in Sweden truck ram
PM indicates incident as ‘terror attack’
A truck slammed into a crowd of people outside a busy department store in central Stockholm on Friday, causing “deaths” in what the prime minister described as a “terror attack.”
“There are deaths, and many injured,” said Nina Odermalm Schei, a spokesperson for Swedish intelligence agency Sapo, without giving a precise figure.
Carl XVI Gustaf, Sweden’s King, said that his family reacted to the attack “with dismay.”
“Sweden has been attacked. Everything points to a terror attack,” said Prime Minister Stefan Lofven.
Pictures showed a large blue truck with a mangled undercarriage smashed into the Ahlens department store. A spokesperson for transport company Spendrups said that the truck “had been stolen during a delivery to a restaurant.”
Swedish police do not have the driver of the truck attack in custody, and released a picture of a suspect captured on video surveillance cameras near the scene of the attack.
“We do not have contact with the driver,” national police chief Dan Eliasson told reporters, as another police officer showed a picture of a man wearing a white sweater and dark hoodie under a military green jacket, with dark stubble on his face.
Eliasson noted that his officers “will do everything we can to find who is behind this attack.”
Nobody has been arrested in connection with the attack, police said.
The incident occurred at the corner of the store and Drottninggatan, the city’s biggest pedestrian street, above ground from Stockholm’s central subway station.
Thick smoke was rising from the scene, while video images showed an area blocked off by police and crowds gathering around the police cordon.
Police vans circulating in the city using loudspeakers urged people to go straight home and avoid large crowds. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Helicopters could be heard hovering in the sky over central Stockholm, and a large number of police cars and ambulances were dispatched to the scene, witnesses said.
Traffic on the Stockholm metro was badly affected, with the attack taking place at the city’s T-Centralen station, through which the entire city’s lines pass. All subway traffic was halted on orders from the police.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday condemned the attack, expressing his hope that those responsible for the attack will be swiftly brought to justice.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the attack was an “attack on us all.”
A spokesperson for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, “Our thoughts go out to the people in Stockholm, to the injured, their relatives, rescuers and police.”