Young men were getting a haircut ahead of a festival - then they were shot dead

Ahead of Sweden's Walpurgis festival to mark the start of spring, young people were busy selecting outfits or getting their hair done. Not all of them made it there alive.

At a hair salon in Uppsala, a city north of Stockholm, three young men who police say were aged between 15 and 20 were shot dead on Tuesday before the celebrations started.

The horror left many shaken in the build-up to the festival, known as Valborg in Swedish, which is typically a convivial affair each 30 April on the eve of the Christian feast day of Saint Walpurga. Celebrated nationwide, Uppsala hosts the country's largest and most high-profile Walpurgis events, popular with students.

The partying did go ahead in full swing, but a subtle heaviness hung over the Swedish blue and yellow flags which fluttered around the city.

And now, with the festival finished, it's only police tape - not flags - fluttering outside the basement barber shop where the shooting took place close to Vaksala Square.

Outside the hair salon in Uppsala, 20-year-old Yamen says he has never been involved in gang crime but knows plenty of others who have.

"Many times in my school, there was gang violence, and in the streets - dealers," he says. "But my personality was to work, study, and now I am in college."

As he leaves to meet friends, a steady stream of young people continue to stop at the street corner next to the hairdressers, some bringing bouquets of flowers. Several appear visibly shaken 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 has asked the BBC not to share his surname. "It feels unreal, you know. It doesn't feel like I've truly accepted the situation."