Sweden's prime minister has declared that the country's army will be committed to tackling criminal gangs, as the Nordic country is experiencing a major crime wave with at least 11 killed in September alone.
Two people were killed by gunfire in two separate incidents in Stockholm yesterday. and a woman in her 20s, believed to be an innocent bystander, was killed when one exploded in a house in Uppsala in the early hours of Thursday. The bomb exploded in the apartment of a mobster whom she had as a neighbor.
"This is a difficult time for Sweden. A 25-year-old woman went to bed last night on a perfectly normal evening but never woke up," Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said during a rare televised address to the nation.
"We will hit the gangs, we will defeat the gangs," he said.
Kristersson formed the centre-right minority government after last year's election with the support of the populist and anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, ending eight years of Social Democrat-led governments in Sweden.
There are many citizens who publicly blame these policies for the increase in crime in Sweden. Once one of the safest countries in the world, Sweden has turned into a battlefield of murders, robberies, drug distribution, sexual crimes that have reached disturbing levels.
The measures have not yet come into effect, but Kristersson blamed previous 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 decades and accepted more migrants per capita than any other European country during the migration crisis of 2015. These policies were overturned 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.