Six people, five of them teenagers, have been hospitalized following five separate knife attacks in London on Thursday, as protesters took to the streets to plead for calm.
A 13-year-old boy was one of the victims of the attacks on Thursday, sustaining serious wounds after being stabbed in east London.
Three youths have been arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm in connection with that attack, Newham police said.
The boy, who was reported to be in a serious, but stable condition, was attacked in Gainsborough Avenue in Newham shortly before 7pm.
Earlier, a man was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after three boys were taken to hospital following a stabbing attack in Mile End, east London.
Two 15-year-old boys remain in a serious, but stable condition.
Another youth, aged 16, who was treated for minor injuries, has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, Tower Hamlets police said.
At about 7pm, a male in his late teens was taken to hospital in west London following a stabbing in Ealing Broadway.
Police said they were awaiting an update on the victim’s condition.
The first incident of the evening happened at about 5:30pm when a 15-year-old boy was stabbed in East India Docks. The victim was in a stable condition and his injuries were not considered to be life-threatening.
A fifth attack occurred in Herne Hill in south London when a man, believed to be in his 40s, was stabbed just after 10pm. He was taken to hospital and police were awaiting an update on his condition.
Bedfordshire police said that two men had been shot in Luton. Both were taken to hospital, but neither was thought to have suffered life-threatening injuries.
The London incidents came as protesters and community leaders gathered in east London to call for an end to a recent spate of violence in which several teenagers have died, pushing London’s murder toll for the year to more than 50.
Crowds gathered near Hackney Central station, close to where Israel Ogunsola, 18, was stabbed to death on Wednesday.
Ogunsola’s murder followed that of 16-year-old Amaan Shakoor two days earlier. He was shot in Markhouse Road, Walthamstow, minutes after the shooting of 17-year-old Tanesha Melbourne in Tottenham the same evening.
Protest organizers from the Guiding a New Generation group — commonly known as GANG — led gatherers into a wide circle where they locked fists and were invited to share thoughts about the recent violence over a megaphone.
One speaker, who addressed the crowd under the name Scripture, said he had seen people being killed at close hand.
“You know what, it’s not a computer game. You’re not gonna come back, bruv. These youths who are doing damage to each other are not coming back and they’re not learning their lesson neither,” he added.
Pauline Pearce, the Hackney mayoral candidate for the Liberal Democrats, told the rally that the string of stabbings and shootings were partly a result of young people feeling “disenfranchised.”
“A lot of the children feel disenfranchised; they don’t feel they belong, they haven’t really got a meaning. They don’t feel that they have that connection to society, so a lot of things go wrong for them and sadly this is the sort of retaliation that comes,” she said.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
RSS