A group of hundreds of people covering their faces and wearing armbands reportedly threatening to attack refugee children in Sweden this week, in what’s being called a hate crime against foreigners.

According to The Telegraph, Stockholm police say that the men gathered specifically with the intention of attacking refugees Friday night. Reports say that the men were also handing out posters demanding to give the “punishment they deserve” to “the North African street children who are roaming around.” The Guardian reports that police have several people in custody.

An eyewitness told the Aftonbladet newspaper.

“I saw maybe three people who were beaten. That was no football brawl or something similar. They targeted migrants. I was quite scared and ran away.”

A neo-Nazi group called the the Swedish Resistance Movement took responsibility for the attack in a statement, saying that they had “cleaned up criminal immigrants from North Africa that are housed in the area around the Central Station.” The group attributed its motive to the recent death of 22-year-old social worker Alexandra Mezher, who was stabbed at a refugee center for children in Sweden during a fight among teenagers.

Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.