At least four young men were stabbed to death in unrelated incidents in London on New Year’s Eve, while a fifth is in a critical condition in hospital.
The unusually concentrated spate of violence adds to the growing concerns about knife crime in London which is at its highest level for five years. At least 80 people were killed in stabbings in London in 2017, more than half of them under the age of 25.
Detectives launched four separate murder investigations into the overnight attacks, which took place away from the city centre, where more than 100,000 people had gathered to watch the New Year’s Eve fireworks and five men have been arrested, police said.
“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,” said police commander Neil Jerome.
Police registered almost 12,100 knife attacks in London in the year to March 2017, which left more than 4,400 people injured the highest figures in five years.
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