LONDON: UK police said on Wednesday they had arrested two teenage boys on suspicion of murder after a 14-year-old boy was stabbed to death on a London bus.
Kelyan Bokassa died after he was attacked in broad daylight last week in the Woolwich area of southeast London, the latest in a string of shocking knife deaths involving teenagers.
Ten teenagers were fatally stabbed in London last year and 18 in 2023.
Police said the two suspects being questioned were aged 15 and 16.
Photographs of Kelyan published in British newspapers after his death showed a smiling young boy who, according to his mother, had been targeted by gang members.
She said that during his troubled life he had been identified by authorities as at risk of gang involvement from the age of six.
After later being taken into care, he also spent some time living on the street, she said.
His killing came a day after an 18-year-old boy was seriously injured in a stabbing a few miles (kilometres) away.
In September last year, a 15-year-old boy, reportedly a close friend of Kelyan, was also stabbed to death in Woolwich, in what the prosecutor described as retaliation linked to a turf war.
Around 27,000 young people aged 10-17 were in 2017 identified as being members of a street gang, according to figures published in a recent Ministry of Justice report.
