Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has claimed that there is no link between the high number of migrants the country has taken in recent years and the rising problem of gang violence.

The Swedish prime minister made his comments on Sunday on Swedish television, stating that the problem with rising gang violence was very real and different from the past and that the government “may not have seen it coming”, Nyheter Idag reports.

When asked by the host of the Agenda programme Anders Holmberg about links between mass migration and gang violence, Löfven was dismissive of any connection, blaming poverty and unemployment rates instead.

“The segregation is because there is too low employment and too high unemployment in these areas. But that would have been the same regardless of who had lived there. If you put people born in Sweden under the same conditions, you get the same result,” the Swedish leader said.