A person is in hospital in critical condition and 4 other people have been stabbed to death in unrelated circumstances on New Year’s Eve in London.
This is following worries in London about knife crime which is at the highest its been for 5 years now.
In 2017, 80 people were killed in stabbings and more than 50% of them are under the age of 25.
Investigators are looking into the 4 different murders which happened in an overnight attack, that took place not far off from the city centre where 100,000’s of people had gathered to watch the fireworks display.
One victim, an 18-year-old man was stabbed in Enfield in north London on Sunday evening he later passed away in hospital. Five men have been arrested police said.
At around 7.30 pm (1930 GMT), a 20-year-old man was stabbed in West Ham in east London, while another, a 17-year-old boy was killed at around 10:40 pm in Tulse hill in the south.
On Monday morning, on Old street a busy nightspot east of the city centre a 20-year-old man was stabbed to death. A second person was injured and is recuperating in hospital with several stab wounds he is in his 20’s also.
Police commander Neil Jerome stated
“It is heart-breaking that, at a time when so many of us are contemplating what lies ahead in 2018, four families are dealing with the grief of losing a loved one to senseless violence and the callous use of knives as lethal weapons.”
There have been almost 12,100 knife attacks in London in the year to March 2017, and more than 4,400 people injured according to police records.
In between Jan. 1 and Dec. 22 77 people died from stabbings according to a spokesperson for the metropolitan police
Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office revealed that 40 of those killed since the start of the year were under the age of 25 In November.
Khan has started a campaign to reduce knife crime, placing metal detectors in high risk schools and the government looks into increasing penalties for crime related to knife violence