Naser Yazdanpanah runs a hairdressing and tailoring service in Malmö. Last weekend he was ironing a pair of trousers when he heard what he thought was rocks being thrown at his shop window. It turned out to be gunshots.
"I jumped out and grabbed this guy and shouted for help, but he headbutted me in the teeth and ran away," he said. As an Iranian living in Malmö, Yazdanpanah knows all about the gunman stalking immigrants in the city, whom police have blamed for a series of 15 shootings in the past year. He thought the attacker may have chosen him for a reason, as earlier in the day he had taken part in a demonstration against the shootings.
Detectives have not linked his case to the others, but Yazdanpanah says the community is anxious. "You can't describe what it feels like to be working in your shop one moment and then finding yourself being shot at the next," says Yazdanpanah, 57, who has lived in Malmö for 12 years. "I'm not shocked, I'm not scarred. I'm trying to fight this and get on with it. It's very sad what is happening [with the shootings] but we are dealing with a sick person".
Yazdanpanah went to hospital but opened the shop again later the same day. "I don't want people to get upset that they are not getting their clothes done, just because I'm sitting here talking," he said, pointing to the clothes piling up on the table next to his sewing machine.
After the incident the press descended on his shop, with flowers and greetings pouring in from his customers. "Look at this place, it's turned into a flower shop," he said.
Two weeks ago, a 28-year-old man was shot in the back waiting at a bus stop in nearby Nydala. Standing near the stop, Viraz Faik said everyone was worried about their security. "It's very uncomfortable for us as immigrants to know that there is somebody out there who is after us. You can't stop thinking about it," she said.
Faik, who is from Iraq, is getting married soon and is planning to move to Austria with her husband. But she is worried about guests' safety at her wedding. "I have got people from my school attending the wedding here in Nydala so I'm nervous," says Faik, 23, who has lived in the area for 10 years.
The attacks on the estate in the Fosie district have drawn the attention of the Swedish press, and the Social Democrats' leader, Mona Sahlin, who visited in the wake of the shooting. But this morning it was quiet as the sun breaks through the clouds to light up the autumn leaves in Nydala's central park area. A couple of small blue and yellow Swedish flags hang from the wooden fences by the groundfloor flats while a lone child is playing at the swings in the playground.
In the shopping square two men sit on a bench drinking beer. When they spot someone across the square unloading a minivan in front of the greengrocer's they shout as-salamu alaykum, Arabic for peace be upon you.
The driver smiles and waves back at them.
In the past few weeks, Swedish police have intensified their presence on the streets of Malmö, drafting in an extra 50 officers from neighbouring districts, but there has been no breakthrough in the hunt for the gunman. Inside the greengrocer's, the owner, Hussein Muhammad, says he has noticed a difference in people's attitude since the shootings.
The Guardian
