(VOVWORLD) - Sweden's prime minister summoned the head of the armed forces and the police commissioner in a bid to stem gang violence, he said on Thursday, following a wave of violence that has taken at least 11 lives in September alone.
 Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. (Photo: Internet) |
Two people were killed in separate shootings in Stockholm on Wednesday, and a woman in her 20s, thought to be an innocent bystander, was killed when a bomb tore up a house in Uppsala in the early hours of Thursday.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said during a rare televised address to the nation, "We will hunt the gangs, we will defeat the gangs.” Sweden had liberal immigration policies for many decades and took in more immigrants per capita than any other European nation during the 2015 migration crisis.
Earlier on Thursday, the opposition Social Democrats, the biggest party in parliament, called on the government to change the law, allowing the military to help stop the gang violence.
The police estimate that about 30,000 people in Sweden are directly involved with or have ties to gang crime. About 20% of Sweden's 10.5 million inhabitants were born abroad.