Schools shut in Swedish town after ‘threat of violence’, officials say

STOCKHOLM – The authorities ordered 16 public schools to shut in the central Swedish town of Borlange on April 22 after receiving a threat of violence, officials said, later announcing that one person had been detained.

The Borlange municipality said in a statement that schools would “resume normal operations” on April 23.

“During the day, police have located and taken the individual who had previously led to the assessment of a potential threat to the schools into custody,” the municipality said, without providing any details of the individual.

“Following this measure, the police now assess that the threat no longer exists,” it added.

Newspaper Aftonbladet had reported the threat involved a “school shooting”, which had also been circulated on social media. The police declined to comment on the report.

Some private schools also kept their doors closed after being told of the threat.

Mr Jorgen Olsson, the city’s administrative manager, told a press conference that students in the city had received information on April 20 that “raises concern”.

“Late on Tuesday (April 21) evening, this information reaches municipal employees,” Mr Olsson told reporters, without specifying the nature of the information.

The municipality listed 16 pre-schools, elementary and secondary schools that were to remain shut for the day. A number of private schools decided independently to close.

Speaking alongside Mr Olsson, Mr Jimmy Spolander, a police official, said they would not give details other than saying that there was a “threat against school operations”.

The police said in an earlier statement they had opened “a preliminary investigation into serious unlawful threats against a group”, adding that it was too early to say “whether the threat has any substance or not”.

Borlange, a town of about 45,000 people, is some 200km north of the capital, Stockholm.

According to public broadcaster SVT, the school closure affected some 3,000 children.

Attacks on schools are relatively rare in Sweden.

In February 2025, a 35-year-old gunman killed 10 people at an adult education centre in Orebro – Sweden’s worst mass shooting – which police said was motivated by the killer’s wish to end his life because of financial and psychological woes.

In March 2022, an 18-year-old student stabbed two teachers to death at a secondary school in the southern city of Malmo.

And in October 2015, three people were killed in a racially motivated attack at a school in the western town of Trollhattan by a sword-wielding assailant who was killed by police. AFP