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SWEDEN

‘Beaten’ missing Malmö boy found in Denmark

A nine-year-old boy who went missing after a controversial altercation with guards at Malmö train station on Monday has been found safe in Jutland.

'Beaten' missing Malmö boy found in Denmark
A screenshot from Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan
Southern Swedish police revealed on Friday morning that Danish police have found a boy who has been at the centre of a week-long controversy in Sweden.
 
The boy was involved in an incident at Malmö train station on Monday in which video appears to show a security guard pushing the nine-year-old onto the ground, sitting on him and holding his hands over his mouth. The boy could be heard reciting the Islamic prayer the Shahada ('There is only one God, and Muhammad is his Prophet').
 
A second guard is shown in the same video clip, restraining an older boy on a bench at the station.

A video of the incident (from Sydsvenskan)

The boy then went missing, setting off a massive police search across southern Sweden. 

On Friday afternoon, Malmö police spokesman Mats Karlsson told Swedish media that the nine-year-old had been found and was being looked after by social services in Denmark.
 
"We are working with the Danish police right now," he told The Local’s team in Sweden.
 
As of Friday afternoon, a 12-year-old boy who was believed to have travelled with the 9-year-old had not yet been discovered, although police said they believed he was in the same area.
 

The news came as police were continuing to investigate the security guards’ behaviour in the incident. 

Karlsson told The Local on Monday that the nationality of the boys remained "unclear" to police, but said it was understood that they had been living at a home for child refugees who had travelled to Sweden unaccompanied.
 
He said police were working with social services to find out more about them.
 
There has been speculation in the Swedish media that the pair have relatives in Sweden and may have been at the station searching for their parents or other family members.
 
"We are trying to find out and gather as much information as possible…but as this is an investigation involving children we cannot reveal that much about our investigation," said Karlsson.

NORWAY

Norway to send 200,000 AstraZeneca doses to Sweden and Iceland

Norway, which has suspended the use of AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine until further notice, will send 216,000 doses to Sweden and Iceland at their request, the Norwegian health ministry said Thursday.

Norway to send 200,000 AstraZeneca doses to Sweden and Iceland
Empty vials of the AstraZeneca vaccine. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)

“I’m happy that the vaccines we have in stock can be put to use even if the AstraZeneca vaccine has been paused in Norway,” Health Minister Bent Høie said in a statement.

The 216,000 doses, which are currently stored in Norwegian fridges, have to be used before their expiry dates in June and July.

Sweden will receive 200,000 shots and Iceland 16,000 under the expectation they will return the favour at some point. 

“If we do resume the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, we will get the doses back as soon as we ask,” Høie said.

Like neighbouring Denmark, Norway suspended the use of the AstraZeneca jab on March 11 in order to examine rare but potentially severe side effects, including blood clots.

Among the 134,000 AstraZeneca shots administered in Norway before the suspension, five cases of severe thrombosis, including three fatal ones, had been registered among relatively young people in otherwise good health. One other person died of a brain haemorrhage.

On April 15, Norway’s government ignored a recommendation from the Institute of Public Health to drop the AstraZeneca jab for good, saying it wanted more time to decide.

READ MORE: Norway delays final decision on withdrawal of AstraZeneca vaccine 

The government has therefore set up a committee of Norwegian and international experts tasked with studying all of the risks linked to the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which is also suspected of causing blood clots.

Both are both based on adenovirus vector technology. Denmark is the only European country to have dropped the AstraZeneca
vaccine from its vaccination campaign, and said on Tuesday it would “lend” 55,000 doses to the neighbouring German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

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