Hampstead stabbing: Man, 20, lay dying in front of weeping family after being ambushed by armed mob yards from home

‘Five attackers’ in double stabbing, then third victim is found minutes later
Crime scene: police tape on a bicycle in Boundary Road, South Hampstead after a man was fatally stabbed near his home
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A young man lay dying from knife wounds in front of his weeping family after being ambushed by an armed mob yards from his home.

The victim — named locally as Abdul, 20 — was stabbed multiple times after he and a 22-year-old cousin were set upon by up to five men shortly before midnight on a housing estate off Abbey Road in South Hampstead.

Witnesses told how the older man shouted at medics “I’m fine... look after him”, pointing at Abdul who was struggling to breathe. Sixteen minutes later, police found a third man, aged 20, with a stab wound to the leg a mile away in Lancefield Street, West Kilburn.

All three victims were taken to hospital where the younger cousin was pronounced dead at 12.37am today. The attacks came as it was announced that Boluwatife Oyewunmi, 22, who was shot near a Travelodge hotel in Enfield two years ago had died in hospital.

In South Hampstead, neighbours woken by relatives of the cousins screaming said the two men had been chased by at least five attackers who then fled in a Vauxhall Astra.

Police tape at the scene of the stabbing

An uncle at the family’s flat nearby said the two were “inseparable”, adding: “Abdul was my little nephew such a good kid. We don’t know much about what happened.

“This is getting crazy, the kids are crazy and knife crime is out of control.”

Armed police who stopped a blue Audi in the early hours arrested two men, aged 20 and 23, on suspicion of murder. They remained in custody at a north London police station today.

This morning, a bicycle with police tape on the handlebars lay at the spot where Abdul is believed to have been attacked, outside Ainsworth House in Boundary Road. Witnesses said he screamed for help as he was chased, and collapsed yards from his home. His parents came out of the block of flats to find their son in a pool of blood.

A woman who tended to him said: “He was losing so much blood, and there was another boy lying on the other side. I saw the attackers running away to a car but I didn’t get a good look at their faces. I called the police and they got the ambulance here.

“His mother was next to him, she fainted and had to be given water by a neighbour. Someone else brought a lot of towels to try and stop the bleeding.”

Another neighbour said: “They were working on him very hard. I saw a girl running towards him shouting ‘That’s my brother’. It was awful.”

A neighbour, 29, said: “His whole family were out there brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles — it’s devastating for them. They all live around here.”

Mr Oyewunmi was shot on April 5, 2017 in Lincoln Road, Enfield. He remained in a critical condition until he died on Thursday, July 11.

Police say the cause of death was recorded as cardiac arrest, pneumonia and brain injury caused by a gunshot wound. Five men who were arrested in 2017 remain under investigation over the incident.

Anyone with information on the attack in South Hampstead is asked to call police on 101 quoting CAD 10016/ july25, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

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