Skip to main content

Swedish PM Summons Army, Police Heads As Gang Violence Rocks Nation

Swedish PM Summons Army, Police Heads As Gang Violence Rocks Nation

View of the damage after an explosion occurred on Thursday in a housing area in Sweden.

Stockholm, Sweden:

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.

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.

"This is a difficult time for Sweden. A 25-year-old woman went to bed last night on a completely ordinary evening but never got to wake up," Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said during a rare televised address to the nation.

"We will hunt the gangs, we will defeat the gangs," he said.

Kristersson formed a centre-right minority government after last year's election with support of the populist and anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, ending eight years of Social Democrat-led governments in Sweden.

His coalition won the election partly on a promise to stem growing gang violence, and it has launched a series of initiatives, such as greater powers to police and harsher punishment for gun crimes.

The measures have yet to take effect, but Kristersson blamed former governments for the problems.

"It is an irresponsible immigration policy and a failed integration that has brought us here," Kristersson said.

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. Those policies were reversed by the former Social Democrat-led government, but have been tightened by Kristersson's government. About 20% of Sweden's 10.5 million inhabitants were born abroad.

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.

"This is not Sweden, this is not how Sweden is supposed to be," Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson told a news conference.

Kristersson said he had summoned the national police commissioner and the supreme commander of the armed forces to evaluate the options.

The police estimate that about 30,000 people in Sweden are directly involved with or have ties to gang crime. The violence has also spread from major urban areas to smaller towns where violent crime was previously rare.

Earlier this week, two people were shot dead and two injured when a gunman opened fire at a bar in Sandviken. The 11 shooting deaths this month make September the deadliest month since December 2019.

"The criminal conflicts in Sweden are a serious threat to the safety and security of the country," National Police Commissioner Anders Thornberg said in a statement.

"Innocents are murdered and injured. We are doing everything we can within the police and together with others to stop the development."

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Adblock test (Why?)



from NDTV News- Special https://ift.tt/O4cAbaT https://ift.tt/dIHW3mb
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

US Defense Chief Austin To Make 'Full Recovery' From Cancer: Doctors

Austin, a 70-year-old career soldier, initially underwent minor surgery to treat cancer on December 22. Washington: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is likely to make a "full recovery" from prostate cancer and his prognosis is "excellent," two doctors said after he was seen at Walter Reed hospital for a follow-up appointment. Austin controversially kept US President Joe Biden in the dark about the cancer diagnosis for weeks, and did not inform either the commander-in-chief or Congress until days after he was hospitalized on January 1 for complications from his treatment. "Secretary Austin was seen today at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a scheduled post-prostatectomy surveillance appointment," the doctors said in a statement released by the Pentagon. "He continues to recover well and is expected to make a full recovery. Secretary Austin's prostate cancer was treated early and effectively, and his prognosis is excellent,...

North Korea Says It Tested New Strategic Cruise Missile

North Korea test-fired a new generation of strategic cruise missile on Wednesday. (Representational) Seoul: North Korea fired several cruise missiles towards the Yellow Sea on Wednesday, Seoul's military said, the latest in a series of tension-raising moves by the nuclear-armed state. Hours later, North Korea appeared to confirm the firing, saying it had carried out its first test of a new generation of strategic cruise missiles it is developing, the Pulhwasal-3-31. Pyongyang has accelerated weapons testing in the new year, including tests of what it called an "underwater nuclear weapon system" and a solid-fuelled hypersonic ballistic missile. "Our military detected several cruise missiles launched by North Korea towards the Yellow Sea at around 7:00 am today," the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. Unlike their ballistic counterparts, the testing of cruise missiles is not banned under current UN sanctions against Pyongyang. Cruise...

US "Deplores" Israeli Attack On UN Training Center In Gaza

More than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza since war began against Hamas. Washington: The United States was concerned by an Israeli attack on a U.N. training center sheltering displaced people in Gaza's Khan Younis on Wednesday, Deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said, repeating Washington's calls for protection of civilians, humanitarian workers and aid facilities. "We deplore today's attack on the U.N.'s Khan Younis training center," Patel told a news briefing, calling it "incredibly concerning." The Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza said that nine Palestinians were killed and 75 were injured when two tank rounds hit the building that was sheltering around 800 people in the southern Gaza Strip. "Civilians must be protected, and the protected nature of UN facilities must be respected, and humanitarian workers must be protected so that they can continue providing civilians with the life-saving humanitarian assistance...