Police in Glasgow have launched a murder inquiry after a 15-year-old Eritrean refugee was found dying after a suspected stabbing.
Amen Teklay was discovered seriously injured on Clarendon Street in the St George’s Cross area of the city late on Wednesday night and pronounced dead at the scene by emergency services.
Police Scotland said that after a postmortem his death was being treated as murder, and they have set up a confidential website for witnesses to report information.
Det Supt Cheryl Kelly urged people to come forward. “Our thoughts are with Amen’s family and friends at this distressing time. We will continue to provide specialist support for them as our investigation continues.
“We are still keen to speak to anyone who was in the area at the time and anyone who has dashcam, private CCTV or doorbell footage around the time of the incident.”
Fatal stabbings of teenagers are relatively rare in Scotland, and the police have not yet offered any theories or motives for the attack.
Amen lived with his father in Glasgow, which has one of the UK’s largest refugee communities, and had recently been granted right to remain status by the Home Office. He was a pupil at St Thomas Aquinas Catholic secondary school in Jordanhill. Claire McInally, its headteacher, said the teenager’s death was a “shock to the school community”. He had shown “great promise”, she said.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Amen’s family and friends at this devastating time,” she said. “Amen was a friendly and much-loved young man who was really interested in music and the media. He was bright and showed great promise.
“This has been a shock for our school community, and we are continuing to offer support to our young people, staff and those in the wider community who are affected.”
Community organisations also paid tribute, the BBC reported. Kingsway Community Connections said: “Amen developed great relationships with our team, and we are all devastated with his sudden death.”
JATV Goals, a youth mentoring project that supports refugees, asylum seekers and recent migrants to the area, often teaching boxing and film and video skills, also paid tribute to the teenager.
“His life was tragically taken from us by the type of violence boxing does so well to combat,” the group said. “Our community is heartbroken as we come to terms with the loss of a young boy who had his full life ahead of him.”
Source: www.theguardian.com