The scourge of stabbing violence is once again putting the United Kingdom into mourning. A 14-year-old boy was stabbed to death on Tuesday afternoon on a bus in south-east London.
Called to the Woolwich district early Tuesday afternoon, London police indicated that “emergency services treated a 14-year-old boy on site who had been stabbed, but he unfortunately died shortly after. » their arrival. No arrests have been made at this stage, said the police, who called on possible witnesses to come forward.
The Prime Minister sees it as a “national crisis”
The attack is the latest in a long list in the country, which has seen the number of incidents involving bladed weapons increase, to the point that Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke of a “national crisis”.
Just Monday, an 18-year-old young man was seriously injured by a stab wound near a school in the same area of London. In September, a teenager was stabbed to death in the same area of Woolwich. Three young men have been charged with murder and face trial next year for what the prosecutor described at a court hearing as “retaliation with all the hallmarks of a turf war.”
Local MP Matthew Pennycook said he was “deeply saddened by this new young life lost in our community”. For his part, the mayor of London Sadiq Khan, regularly accused by the conservative opposition of not taking sufficient action against knife violence, judged the incident “appalling”. “This violence has absolutely no place in our city,” he added on X.
A law to stem the problem
In total, more than 50,500 incidents involving knives were recorded by police in England and Wales between March 2023 and March 2024, an increase of 4% on the previous year, according to Department of Health figures. 'Interior. And between March 2022 and March 2023, 82% of teenage victims of homicide were killed with knives, compared to 73% over the same period the previous year, according to the latest official figures available.
In September, a law came into force banning machetes and “zombie” knives (double-edged weapons with curved blades) associated with gang culture, the use of which has doubled in five years.
