British police announced Wednesday that they had arrested two teenagers aged 15 and 16, suspected of the murder of a 14-year-old boy, stabbed in broad daylight on a London bus last week.
Young Kelyan Bokassa, 14, was stabbed on January 7 in the Woolwich district of south London. He died shortly after emergency services arrived on the scene.
This attack and the testimony of the victim’s mother on her son’s links with street gangs have relaunched the debate on the scourge of bladed weapons in the United Kingdom and the influence of these gangs on certain young people.
“A 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy were arrested on Wednesday January 15 on suspicion of murder and taken into custody,” police said in a statement Wednesday.
A 44-year-old woman was also arrested on suspicion of “helping” one of the alleged attackers.
Chief Inspector Sarah Lee, who is leading the investigation, called the arrests an “important milestone”.
Acknowledging that “this incident has profoundly affected” the population of Woolwich, she said she hoped that “these two arrests provide reassurance that we are doing everything we can to tackle violent offenders in London”.
The Woolwich area is known as a location for criminal gang activity, some linked to drug trafficking.
Witnesses present near the scene of the attack last Tuesday and cited by British media claimed to have seen two young people fleeing, one of them armed with a machete.
Young Kelyan, who had been placed by social services in the past, was himself soon to appear in court for “possession of an offensive weapon in a public space”.
The day before his death, an 18-year-old young man was seriously injured by a stab wound near a school in the same area of Woolwich, and in September a teenager was stabbed to death there.
Ten teenagers died from stabbings in London in 2024, after 18 in 2023, according to police figures.
Last Wednesday, a 17-year-old boy was stabbed to death after being attacked by several individuals in Bedford (north London). Four teenagers aged 16 to 18 were arrested and charged with murder.
