Teenager is stabbed to death in school uniform

A DISTRAUGHT mother screamed her 15-year-old son’s name over and over last night at the spot where he was stabbed to death while in his school uniform.

Baptista Adjei, a promising young footballer, was attacked along with a school friend while on a bus home in Stratford, east London.

The teenager, pictured, staggered 100 yards across the street to a McDonald’s restaurant before collapsing, and was pronounced dead half an hour later, at 3.50pm on Wednesday.

His mother, Josephine, and about 50 school friends laid flowers at the scene last night.

‘Baptista, Baptista,’ she screamed as she collapsed on to her knees, ‘You are only 15. Why?’

Baptista’s 15-year-old friend is being treated for knife injuries which are not life-threatening. Just five hours after the friends were attacked, another teenager was fatally stabbed in the capital – in Camberwell, south London. The deaths bring the total number of murders in London this year to 118. Of these, 23 were teenagers.

Witnesses said Baptista, known to his friends as Bap who was a pupil at Catholic boys’ school St Bonaventure’s in Forest Gate, had been stabbed in the neck and upper body, while his friend was knifed in the leg.

His aunt, Aretha Adjei, said the Manchester United fan had phoned his mother just minutes before the attack to say he was catching the bus because his train home to North Woolwich had been disrupted by the capital’s Extinction Rebellion protests. She added: ‘We are not coping well. Our boy is gone. He was a lovely boy. His mother is devastated.’

Baptista had upcoming trials for League One side Ipswich Town, his former coach Seni Emmanuel said. He added: ‘I’m absolutely devastated, everyone’s in shock. He was on the verge of making it. He was a nice boy to work with, no problem at all.’

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, who is in charge of policing the climate change protests, said: ‘We’ve had to bring into central London many, many officers from local communities. While clearly we can’t directly attribute the murders to the protest, there’s no question that some of the things we would want to be doing in communities we’re simply unable to do.’

In Camberwell, the 18-year-old victim was the third killed on the Brandon Estate in 18 months. Rhyhiem Barton, 17, was shot in May 2018, then Siddique Kamara, 23, was stabbed last August.

No arrests have been made in either murder.