Two Young Somali Men Stabbed To Death In London
Two Young Somali Men Stabbed To Death In London
Police have launched a pair of murder investigations after two young men were fatally stabbed in north-west London.
Two men were stabbed to death within hours of one another in the worst night of violence in the capital since New Year’s Eve when four men died.
Scotland Yard said the first victim, believed to be in his late teens, was found with stab wounds in Bartholomew Road, Camden, at about 8.30pm on Tuesday.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
He is the sixth teenager to have been stabbed to death in the capital so far this year.
One resident, who didn’t want to be named, said: ‘The boy was playing football on the green just after 7pm. I see him playing football every day and going to school, and he went to the shop to get a drink.
‘I heard there was a blue van and someone jumped on him, and he got stabbed.
‘His mum saw him die. What do you say to someone who just watched their child die? He’s 17 – he’s just a baby. He was never rude, he was lovely. I saw him taking his brother to play football.’
The woman told the Evening Standard: ‘He just went to the corner shop to get a drink and now he’s just lying there. They put pictures of his dead body on the internet and there’s a scorecard going around.’
Officers were later called to reports of a disturbance in Malden Road at about 10.15pm and found a man, believed to be about 20 years old, with serious stab wounds.
He was also pronounced dead at the scene. He was the 15th person stabbed to death in London since New Year’s Eve.
Police are awaiting formal identification of the first victim and said next of kin have been informed. Inquiries are underway to confirm the identity of the second man.
Detectives from the Homicide and Major Crime Command have launched separate investigations and said police are working to establish whether there are any links between the two incidents.
No arrests have been made.
Police said additional patrols will take place across Camden throughout the night and a section 60 order – which gives police the right to search people in places where they believe serious violence will take place – is in force until 7am on Wednesday.
The first attack took place just metres away from where a candlelit vigil was held for another teenage stabbing victim on Monday night.
Lewis Blackman, 19, who grew up on the Peckwater estate in Kentish Town, was killed in Kensington on Sunday outside Freddie Mercury’s former home.
Official figures show that 2017 was the worst year for knife deaths among young people since at least 2002.
Forty-six people aged 25 or under were stabbed to death in London, up by 21 compared with the previous year, according to police figures.
DCS Sean Yates, Scotland Yard’s head of knife crime, blamed social media as an increasing factor in escalating grudges between youngsters that led to knife attacks.
He also told the Guardian courts were failing to enforce a ‘two strikes’ law aimed at jailing those caught with a knife twice, which was frustrating law enforcement.
The sharp rise in the number of young people killed by knife crime in London has come despite Scotland Yard stepping up its use of suppression and enforcement tactics, carrying out more stop and search, more weapon sweeps and other activity on the streets.
The Met commissioner, Cressida Dick, has said reversing rising violent crime is a priority.
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