This month a worrying amount of violence has occurred in London, threatening or taking several lives away.

Most of these attacks have occurred in central areas of North East London: Walthamstow, Tottenham, Hackney and Mile End.

Within the first week of April, two fatal shootings occurred followed by a fatal stabbing. Many others fell victims of these attacks or separate attacks and were left with injuries of varying severities. Fortunately these were not life-threatening.

Tanesha Melbourne became the first victim of a fatal attack, after she was shot in the chest in the late hours on the 2nd of April.

Within half an hour of the first attack, Aman Shakoor became the second victim where he was shot in the face on Markhouse Road.

The severity of his wound was as such that even after being hospitalised, he passed away the following evening.

A classmate, who was with Aman during the attack was also hospitalised after being stabbed in the arm but did not suffer life-threatening consequences.

Within two nights after this, a man was killed after a violent stabbing in Hackney which was followed by another knife crime in Mile End that left teenagers hospitalised.

These events have evidently affected the youth of London and prompted the question of what has exactly caused the rapid increase of crimes in London?

Lauren Ruffel, who lives in Tottenham claims that "it could be the result of anger among people as there is not enough opportunity and support for young people in deprived areas like mine."

“I think it’s the lack of police officers patrolling the streets. There used to be a lot more but I’ve noticed they’ve been declining”, suggests Camay Mcauley, also from Tottenham.

Many of these attacks are said to have been the result of an increase in the number of gangs and the violence they are inducing even when the victims may not have necessarily been involved in anything as such.

Aadil Sonvadi, who used to attend Aman’s primary school believes that this is one of the two things that have caused this rapid increase.

He also suggests that it is due to "the increase in trap or drill music where rappers sing about stabbing or shooting their enemies" as the listeners tend to either not understand the words or feel a sense of positive reinforcement after listening to them.

The concurrent events have brought about a rise in knife and gun crimes in London, creating a wave of worry especially for the younger generation.

Lauren says "It worries me frequently as someone in my family has already been a victim to a violent crime and the worst part is, it can happen again to anyone at any time."

Yeshe Griffiths-Golha who went to Tanesha’s secondary school says "I always worry someone I know will die. When Tanesha was shot in a drive by it affected the whole school."

After the incident in Walthamstow, not far from the local mosque, Aadil conveyed that his worry is increasing because "Ramadan is soon approaching and the night prayers will finish late and many teens will be making their way back home alone."

"It’s sad that increase in violence in our area is restricting even the most innocent of acts like praying", he added.

After a month of numerous incidents and suggesting the causes of them, many have thought about in what ways these incidents can be reduced.

Camay advises that “more campaigns against gangs, places for young people to go as a recreation and more helped offered in schools and colleges” will help prevnt this.

“I know a couple of youth groups but I don’t see much government awareness of them", Aadil added.

Yeshe argues that she’d "rather the police stop and search than take a chance and get stabbed on a what would be a fun night out."

The violence can be reduced in a considerable amount of ways but it also important to understand the the increase in violence is increased by various factors that are unknown.

However, it is important that we use what we do know to prevent events like these to occur again.

We must raise awareness of youth groups and discourage our close ones from the glorification of gang culture beacuse we as a community must take responsibility of each other.

By Hafsa Moolla, CandI SFC