Mercy Muroki: Knife crime has never been more visible, and yet those in power continue to turn a blind eye

A doctor working in a London Hospital has written in the paper recounting her harrowing experience of treating stab victims in the Capital.

Writing in the Daily Mail, Jane Smith recalls how within a few weeks of working in a London hospital as a junior doctor, she had already had to treat two stab victims – stab victims she says are almost ‘always teenagers’.

She describes how she has witnessed gangs trying to force their way into hospitals to, well, finish the job when they have not successfully murdered their victims. Gangs – she says – are coming up with all sorts of ways to try and access victims who have survived. They are using tactics like pretending to be family members to get access to victims in hosptial, and even creating fake ID badges.

Between 2019 and 2020, there were nearly 5000 hospital admissions for attacks with knives and other shark object. If you’re a poor young boy living in an inner city urban area – especially if you’re black - knife crime is the real pandemic.

Just a few days ago I saw a video of a man stabbing a stranger in the back in broad daylight after a minor altercation. A few days before that, I saw footage of a young boy – a black boy - who had literally had his hand dismembered by local gangs.

Knife crime has never been more visible, and yet those in power continue to turn a blind eye. When are we going to say – this is a crisis and we need to get a handle on it? Because, if my memory serves me right, young people across the country have been forced to lose their education, plunged into mental health crises, and had every aspect of their lives changed for the worst against their wishes for something that poses virtually no risk to them. But when thousands of young people are out stabbing each other in gang warfare, it apparently warrants no action.

Do the lives of young men in inner-city urban areas not matter? The answer – clearly – is no.

I long for a politician – any politician, of any colour, of any party – to stick their head above the parapet and be frank about the fact we are clearly happy abandoning so many young men in this country, and leaving them to face the cruelest fate.