A teenager was stabbed to death in south-east London on Sunday, the latest victim of the scourge of knife attacks, just before a law comes into force on Tuesday to ban machetes and “zombie” knives.
Called to the Woolwich neighborhood on Sunday around 6:30 p.m. (1:30 p.m. in Quebec), police found the teenager seriously injured, they said in a press release on Monday.
He “sadly died shortly afterwards despite the efforts of officers and paramedics at the scene.” No suspects have been arrested at this stage, she said.
The death comes just before a law comes into force on Tuesday that will ban the possession of “zombie” knives (double-edged weapons with curved blades) or machetes, inspired by gang culture in the United Kingdom.
Their owners were asked to hand them over to the police or to associations before this date.
In total, more than 50,500 knife incidents were recorded by police in England and Wales between March 2023 and March 2024, an increase of 4% on the previous year.
The number of crimes involving the soon-to-be banned weapons — machetes, zombie-style knives — as well as sabres has nearly doubled in five years, topping 14,000 incidents in 2023, according to police.
In early September, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged to crack down on the online sale of such weapons, setting a target of halving such attacks within the next ten years.
Between March 2022 and March 2023, 82% of teenage homicide victims were killed in a knife attack, compared to 73% in the same period the previous year, according to official figures.
The government has also launched a coalition to tackle the root causes of crime, with the backing of actor Idris Elba, who is calling on the new Labour government to reverse drastic cuts to youth services previously made by the Conservatives.