A man has been stabbed to death on a bustling north London high street in broad daylight – as London’s year of bloodshed continues.
A murder investigation has been launched after police were called to reports of a stabbing in busy Upper Street, Islington, at 6.30pm.
Police officers and paramedics from the London Ambulance Service attended and the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
Crowds gathering outside Islington Town Hall were held back by a police cordon as officers arrived on the scene.
Crowds gathered around the cordoned off strip of Upper Street from Barnsbury Street to Islington Park Road
Forensic officers are scanning the road near to where the stabbing took place.
Paramedics were seen performing CPR on the victim near Highbury and Islington underground station in the well-to-do area.
A Met Police spokesman confirmed: ‘Road closures remain in place around the scene. There have been no arrests and enquiries into the attack continue.’
William Potter, whose home looks down onto the scene of the stabbing, wrote on Twitter: ‘Young guy stabbed and killed right outside my flat on Upper Street. Horrible thing to witness. Poor guy.’
The victim becomes the 66th person to die in London this year in an unprecedented wave of violence
The adjoining Barnsbury street is also shut off all the way up to Liverpool road.
The absolute cordon is causing residents concern. One woman, who did not want to be named was pleading with officers to let her see her dog, which had been locked in all day.
Another resident said he was trying to get food to his elderly grandmother, but could not reach her house.
At 9.30pm a police helicopter was circling over Islington.
The area remains cordoned off as police investigate the incident which left one dead
Islington resident Paul Aaron was walking home to his flat at the time of the attack.
‘The stabbing on Upper Street is literally outside of the flat me and my friend live in,’ he said.
‘To think i was walking home at the same time that it happened, if I was five minutes earlier, God knows it could have been me.’
Police at the scene say that the nearby St Mary’s church will be open for food and shelter overnight.
Arunesh Thangarajah (pictured) has been named as the young man who was stabbed to death in Mitcham on Sunday
Police were at the scene throughout Sunday as they investigate the death of the latest victim
This unnamed individual becomes London’s 66th murder victims of 2018 and the fourth in four days.
In the early hours of Sunday in Mitcham, south-west London, 28-year-old Arunesh Thangarajah was stabbed to death in a senseless and frenzied attack.
Police arrested a 44-year-old man on suspicion of murder at the scene and he remains in custody.
Concerned local resident Shelly, 48, from neighbouring Montrose Gardens, said: ‘It’s another death, another young boy – we’ve had enough of it quite frankly.
‘He was attacked over at the Co-op and he stumbled over here and across the road, looking for help.’
And on Friday Osman Shidane, 20, died after being attacked in Victoria road in South Ruislip on Tuesday.
Shidane, from West Drayton, Hillingdon, was rushed to hospital and remained in a critical condition for several days.
The 16-year-old boy charged with Shidane’s murder is from Hillingdon but cannot be named for legal reasons.
Osman Shidane, 20 (pictured), died on Friday after being repeatedly stabbed on Tuesday night
A boy, just 16, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was charged with Shidane’s murder yesterday and is being held in custody
He was arrested on Wednesday at about 12.30pm in The Fairway, a residential street in Ruislip, on suspicion of attempted murder.
This most recent spike in deadly stabbings began with the death of a trainee bricklayer who died outside his home after he was chased down by a rival gang.
The youngster, named locally as Abrahaman Juma, was in his slippers as he ran from his killers at around 11.30pm on Thursday.
Just hours after his murder family and friends were stood grieving outside the family home in Barking, east London.
Knife and gun crimes tend to be disproportionately concentrated in London and other metropolitan areas, the Office for National Statistics said, but it added that the majority of police force areas saw rises in these types of violent crime.
Abrahaman Juma (pictured) was brutally knifed to death on Thursday in Barking
Police were first on the scene when they were called to Crows Road, Barking, in east London to find the man suffering with stab injuries
Friends and family of the victim where spotted congregating near to the spot where the 24-year-old was killed
In the first three months of this year 45 murders were recorded, compared to the first quarter of 2017 when there were 23.
There were two stabbings in just half an hour last month, when on April 15 young father Raul Nicolaie was knifed to death aged 26 in north London. In Brixton in the south of the capital, a woman lost her life to knife crime.
An urgent investigation into the violent crime wave in the capital was launched by the Police and Crime Committee of the London Assembly – and Mayor Sadiq Khan has been urged to ‘take hold of the situation’.