The Swedes react to horror in the Walpurgis Festival

Before the Sweden Walpurgis Festival at the beginning of spring, the young people were busy selecting outfits or doing their hair. Not all of them made it alive there.

In a hairdressing salon in Uppsala, a city north of Stockholm, three young men, of whom the police said they were between 15 and 20 years old on Tuesday before the start of the celebrations.

The horror was shaken by many in the establishment of the festival, known as Valborg in Swedish. This is typically a sociable matter on April 30 on the eve of the Christian festival of St. Walpurga. Uppsala celebrated nationwide and organizes the country's largest and best-known Walpurgis events, which is popular with students.

The party went in full, but a subtle heaviness hung over the Swedish blue and yellow flags that fluttered around the city.

And now, with the end of the festival, only the police band – no flags – fluttered in front of the hairdressing shop in the basement, where the shootout took place near Vaksala Square.

“It's really sad,” says 20-year-old student Yamen Alchoum, who is in the area to eat in a nearby snack car. He said he was in another hairdresser on the night of the shootings, but had previously cut his hair several times in this salon. “I think if I was there [on Tuesday]… I would be involved like shooting. And it's a bit scary. “

According to witnesses, who spoke to the Swedish media -TV4 and Aftonbladet, two of the young victims were dressed in hairstyle and sat in salon chairs when they were shot in the head on Tuesday shortly after 5 p.m.

The city center was busy at that time when the commuters made the nearby train station and students from the city's renowned university came back to their apartments.

Witnesses stated that many had confused with fireworks. Minutes later, several police cars and an ambulance came, blocked the street and forced a bus to turn around. Helicopters and drones were sent to track down the suspect. Local media reported that he had worn a mask and used an electric scooter to get away from the scene.

“I heard the helicopter, so I knew something had happened,” says Sara, a 32-year-old who lives on the street. She says that her phone was quickly asked with news notifications and texts by friends whether she was doing well.

About two hours after the shootings, the police arrested a 16-year-old boy. In Sweden, suspects can be kept on the basis of various suspicion levels, and the teenager was initially recorded at the second highest level, which indicates a strong suspicion.

By Friday, however, the prosecutors said that the case was weakened against him and that it was released.

On Saturday, the Swedish police confirmed that six people have now been arrested in connection with the case. According to the public prosecutor, the suspects are between the ages of 18 and 45 and one is suspected of carrying out the murders.

The people who intended to visit Uppsala for the Walpurgis Festival was recommended not to change their plans, since the police promised additional resources on the city's cathedral and suggested that the shootout was probably an “isolated incident”.

While many were still shaken, tens of thousands of Sweden still remembered their advice and packed the banks from Uppsalas Fyris River to watch the annual student raft race, drink in the city's pubs and parks or go to a huge public campfire in the evening. Others joined the annual spring ceremony in front of the university, where current and former students gathered to wave white caps.

“I haven't really frightened,” says Alvin Rose, 19, a student for social studies who has a snack on the Vaksala Square at the door, from where the shootings took place. “It feels like there is more security, more police officers.”

His girlfriend Kassandra Fritz, an 18-year-old student for natural sciences, said she drove from her house in Gävle to Uppsala in the north to “have fun and meet new people”.

She reflects that she has no more “strong” reaction to news about shootings in Sweden, since they are often in the headlines. “There have been so many shootings lately, not only here in Uppsala, but everywhere in Sweden.”

In the past ten years, Sweden has developed into a European hotspot for weapon crimes, which is often associated with criminal networks. The research for the Swedish National Council for Criminal Prevention last year came to the conclusion that the profile of the perpetrators is “and younger”, with the number of young people who perform or die both.

The Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristsson was on a working trip to Valencia when the shootout took place in Uppsala, but has since referred to it as “extremely violent act”.

“This underlines that the wave of violence is not yet over – it continues,” he said in an interview with the Swedish news agency TT on Wednesday.

At a press conference the day after, the officials said the possibility to investigate that the deaths were associated with gang crime, but said that it was too early to confirm this.

The police in various Swedish cities have previously announced that gangs are concluded more frequent children to carry out crimes, since those who are 15 or younger are under the age of criminal responsibility in Sweden.

The Swedish government recently proposed controversial new laws that would enable the police to prevent cable children to prevent them from being recruited into young gangs.

The ministers also said they want to tighten the country's gun laws.

In February, 10 people were killed in the country's worst mass shootings in an adult education center in the Swedish city of Oebro. In this case, the police suspect that a 35-year-old was behind the murders. He legally had a weapon and was found dead in the building.

Outside the hairdressing salon in Uppsala, 20-year-old Yamen says that he has never been involved in gang crimes, but knows many others who have it.

“Often there was gang violence in my school and on the streets – dealers,” he says. “But my personality was to work, study, and now I'm in college.”

When he friends to meet friends, a steady stream of young people continues to keep on the street corner next to the hairdressers, some bring bouquets of flowers. Some appear visibly poured and have tears in their eyes.

“I knew him very well,” says Elias, a 16-year-old who says he was friends with one of the victims, and asked the BBC not to share his last name. “It feels unreal, you know. It doesn't feel like I really accepted the situation.”