Disbelief

Residents had watched in horror from flats overlooking the scene as the victim was chased and surrounded.

They said he hammered on a door screaming, “Help me”, before slumping to the ground fatally wounded at 11pm on Monday.

One onlooker told the Daily Express: “It was really horrible. I saw it all from my bedroom.

“There were three of them chasing this one boy. They were all wearing hoodies and the middle one out of the three was carrying a machete. It was really long.

“They held him down and stabbed him.Then they got into this silver Ford and drove past again just to laugh at him. It is so sad. They were so young.”

A staff member at a nearby cafe added: “The car just pulled up, people jumped out and chased him through the estate. They stabbed him and then drove off.”

Yesterday flowers were handed to police at the scene by Camden Against Violence, a campaign group which mentors young people away from crime.

Crime crusader Terry Ellis, a reformed bank robber who works

for the group, said of the dead youth: “He was liked by his peers, a great personality, very articulate.

“There is a great disbelief that his life has been taken. People are just stunned.There is no logic to it.They are just kids acting on impulse.

“He was a young child still, 16 years old, finding his way in the world. He was basically a normal, popular kid doing normal things.”

Mr Ellis added: “Most of our members are mothers. They fear for their own children.” Meanwhile, local resident Mirza Hussain, 65, said that after hearing shouts from outside his flat, he saw the teenager’s body on the pavement.

He said: “It was shocking. I have lived here since 1988 and everything has been fine until the last few years. There are gangs of youths hanging around in the street until the early hours of the morning, smoking drugs. Nobody feels safe.”

Tourists staying at the Melia White House Hotel, just yards from the scene, told of their shock. Jose Blanco, 20, of the Dominican Republic, said: “I had heard about rising crime in London on the news but I didn’t expect someone to be killed next to my hotel.”

Nei Barbosa, 48, from Paraná in Brazil, said: “We thought London was safe.We will be very careful.”

The victim is the 15th teenager to be murdered in London this year and the 14th stabbed to death.

The Metropolitan Police said a murder probe was under way but so far there had been no arrests.