Funeral held for 15-year-old Ghanaian footballer stabbed in UK

A video sighted by www.ghanaweb.com captures the mother of young Baptista inconsolable as a hearse designed with his club’s wreath conveyed his remains.

Madam Josephine Adjei, together with other mourners, is seen weeping uncontrollably at the yard.

Baptista Adjei was on the verge of joining League One side, Ipswich Town before his untimely death.

Background

Baptista was fatally knifed in his school uniform outside McDonald’s, in Stratford Broadway, at 3:20 pm last week Thursday. It was reported that paramedics tried to keep the teenager alive, who witnesses saw collapsed in a pool of blood, but he was pronounced dead at the scene just half an hour later.

Police believe Baptista, who was described by family as a ‘nice boy’, was attacked shortly after he got off of the bus by another 15-year-old. One of his friends who was with him was rushed to hospital with stab wounds, where he survived with non-life-threatening injuries. The talented footballer, who was wearing the uniform of Catholic boys’ school St Bonaventure’s, in Forest Gate, when he was attacked, had recently tried out for League One team Ipswich Town.

Baptista’s mother disclosed that his son had phoned her to say he was on his way home just 20 minutes before he was assassinated. His mum had offered to pick him up from school due to the delays on the DLR route amid Extinction Rebellion protests. But he said he would catch the bus after school instead, as he wanted to go to McDonald’s with a friend.

His aunt Aretha Adjei said Baptista’s heartbroken mum ‘keeps saying how she should have gone and picked him up’. She told the Evening Standard: ‘His mother is not coping well. She only has two children. You can’t imagine her pain… ‘He was a fun-loving boy, very popular with everyone in the church, everyone in the street knew him.

Just five hours after Baptista was knifed, an 18-year-old was found with stab wounds near a children’s nursery in Brandon Estate, Camberwell, south London. Their deaths take the number of teenagers murdered in the capital this year to 23. Police have described the attacks as “senseless”.

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