LONDON (AFP) – A teenager appeared in a London court yesterday charged with the murder of a 15-year-old schoolgirl in a case that has once again shone the spotlight on United Kingdom (UK) knife crime.
Elianne Andam was stabbed to death in Croydon, south London, as she went to school on Wednesday. A 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was arrested shortly afterwards.
He appeared at youth court, sitting at Croydon Magistrates’ Court yesterday charged with murder and possession of a knife, police said in a statement.
Emergency services including an air ambulance were called to the scene at around 8.30am following reports of a stabbing.
Paramedics battled to save the girl but she was pronounced dead at the scene 50 minutes later.
London mayor Sadiq Khan said he was “heartbroken” by the fatal incident and pledged to “continue working day and night to end the scourge of knife crime in our city”. According to official figures, 99 people under the age of 25 were killed in England and Wales with a knife or sharp object in the year to March 2023. Of those 13 were under the age of 16.
The deaths were among 50,000 stabbing incidents in the year to March 2023, a five per cent increase on the previous year and a 75 per cent increase on a decade ago, the figures from the Office for National Statistics showed.
Andam was a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift School, a private girls’ school in Croydon.
