Emergency services were called out to the Gärdet area in Bollnäs, north of Gävle in eastern Sweden, at 8.48pm on Monday, after a car drove into a crowd of what the Aftonbladet newspaper reported were foreign seasonal workers, hired to pick berries in Swedish forests over the summer.
“Around 20 berry pickers were involved in an argument at the scene and during the argument a car carrying one of the berry pickers drove into the crowd. The driver then left the scene,” police said in a statement published online.
A mother and her adult son were hit by the car, said emergency services.
“They have broken their legs in the traffic accident,” emergency services officer Johan Lindberg told the TT newswire.
Police reported shortly before 5am that the woman had several fractures and risked permanent injury.
Another two men were understood to have been injured in the brawl. Listing the men's injuries, without stating whether they received them being hit by the car or later, police said that one was in a serious condition due to a head injury and had been moved to Uppsala University Hospital, another had a broken leg and a third had been able to leave hospital.
Police have launched an investigation into attempted murder and several cases of assault. The suspected driver, who was still at large on Tuesday morning, has been identified as a man in his mid-twenties. All police regions across Sweden, the customs agency and coastguard have been alerted.
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