Safer in Somalia? It's time to end London's street violence
3 min read
Chuka Umunna MP says the continued violence experienced by vulnerable youth in the capital is ‘a damming indictment of the situation on London’s streets’ and calls for more to be done to prevent ‘these tragic deaths.’
I've had several exchanges with the Prime Minister during debates in the House of Commons but have only been called to ask him a question at weekly PMQs on two occasions.
First, on 7 July 2010, I told him about my young constituent, Zac Olumegbon, who was murdered in a planned attack close to his school. He was just 15. Then on 8 June 2011 I went straight to PMQs from meeting the family of my 18 year old constituent, Nana Darko-Frempong, and told the House how he had been fatally shot outside his block of flats on the Tulse Hill Estate in my area. Both were victims of the senseless, serious youth violence which impacts on a substantial minority of young people in Inner London boroughs like mine in Lambeth.
On both occasions the PM promised the Government would do all that it could to take measures to prevent these tragic deaths and end this violence in the future.
Last Friday – over 5 years after I first raised this with the PM – another constituent and his family came to my surgery. Last year his younger son was stabbed on the same estate as Nana Frempong and has since had to be taken into foster care in another part of London in order to get him out of our community for his own safety. In recent weeks his elder brother was stabbed on another estate in Streatham, was critically injured, taken to Hospital and now cannot leave Hospital because it has been deemed too unsafe for him to return home.
This constituent had come to the UK with his sons from Somalia – a country ravaged by lawlessness, extreme violence and civil war - because he wanted a better future for his children and for them to be safe. He is completely bewildered by what has happened. When I asked him whether he felt his sons would be safer in Mogadishu than in London, he told me he felt it would be less dangerous for his children to live there than here - he massively regrets moving them to our capital .
Many Londoners have no idea the extent to which this is still happening on our doorsteps as many of these vulnerable young people live parallel lives. The Mayor and Government have done some important work in this area. But these stories are a damming indictment of the situation on London’s streets and shows that so much more needs to be done to end this violence.
Chuka is the Labour Member of Parliament for Streatham and a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee
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