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Hundreds Attend Candlelight Vigil for Sweden School Stabbing

Police say attack on Somali immigrants was a hate crime.

To remember those who were brutally murdered in a racist rampage at a Swedish school, hundreds of people gathered for a candlelight vigil Friday (Oct. 23).

According to police, a 21-year-old masked man with a sword and a knife went on a killing spree a day earleir, stabbing two people to death and critically injuring two others before being shot by the cops.

The Associated Press reports that the Scandinavian nation was shocked to learn of the prejudiced attack of violence in the southern industrial town near the country's largest city of Goteborg.

"This is a black day for Sweden," Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said. "It is a tragedy that hits the entire country."

WATCH: DETAILS EMERGE ABOUT DRUMMER SHOT BY POLICE

While hate crimes and violent crimes altogether rarely occur in Sweden, there has reportedly been an influx of arson attacks on asylum centers over the past few weeks as the number of refugees increased. Immigration officials estimate that about 190,000 asylum-seekers will arrive this year.

Proving that the attack was racially motivated, police investigator Thord Haraldsson told reporters that school surveillance video footage showed the 21-year-old attacker roaming through the school with a sword and a sharpened knife, intentionally selecting victims who were all "dark-skinned."

"I've been living here my whole life," said Nour Shilbaya, an 18-year-old former student at the school. "It feels so hard to see all of this happening because it feels like a movie... You can't imagine that it is real."

To keep the peace, headwritten signs in Swedish, Arabic and Persian were stuck on windows and doors, encouraging passers by to respect those who came to pay their respects throughout the day.

"This is a quiet place. A very nice place to live. It is not a racist place," said Abdul Asiz Kassim, a 37-year-old Somali translator who migrated to Sweden 23 years ago. "What happened here yesterday... nobody can stop."

Take a look at BET.com's coverage of the incident in the video below.

BET Global News - Your source for Black news from around the world, including international politics, health and human rights, the latest celebrity news and more.

 (Photo: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty Images)

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