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.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS