When the city streets are visited by sudden death

nine teenagers were killed in gang violence in London so far this year. Here, an observer photographer tells how she came face to face with the nihilistic brutality of the city

On the sidewalk, where Yemurai Kanyangarara had been killed, people were leaving flowers. The blinds, which had hung links school black balloons and fixed with the letters RIP. The 16-year-old had died the previous day, a week ago last Friday, in this case ordinary high street short Welling, southeast London.

who had come to take pictures of the scene as part of a project for a year, I worked

The landscape of murder

, so I photograph the scene of each murder in London this year. Over the last seven months, was on the edge of gang violence and knife crime in London. Then, twice in the space of 36 hours, I was with reality. And was the first time in Welling.

Kanyangarara reached the point where he had died the day after it happened. Some people embraced, while others stood and watched. Everything seemed quiet at first. Suddenly, like the other scenes I shot this year of gang violence - which is about 15% of the 60 murders that took place in London this year, a deep undercurrent of anger and aggression emerged. Seeing some of the young men, I realized that they were accused of everything.

heard a couple talk about revenge and saying they knew who he was. Another attempt to intimidate me while I worked. Violence, when it came, was sudden, caused by the arrival of a couple of young men with flowers. They were members, I would learn, from a rival gang who were mostly boys gathered there. The brawl suddenly took me by surprise. It was as close as soon as it began.

But first, despite the presence of police, two boys who were the first got the knife and showed him threatening. It was shocking in light of what happened here yesterday. Reflecting on it later, one of the things that impressed me is that here people were willing to enter into a multitude of people who hated them. They are not worried about the consequences.

• The second incident occurred one and a half later. This time not even working. Instead, I went with my family for a picnic in a park in Stoke Newington, north London, where there was a festival held in Turkey. I knew a guy not far from where we sat. I thought he was thrown from his bicycle.
walk to see if he could not give help, I saw he had been stabbed in the abdomen. As in Welling, a group of guys, even when the police treated the boy. They saw a visible complacency. I felt I knew more about what had happened to the rest of us.

In the seven months I have been photographing these sites, I learned about the different types of murders that take place - is not generally - in London. Most people are murdered by their partners or friends or other people they know. Related murders in criminal activity has taken its own form. The strangest of all are the random attacks by strangers.

The nine gang-related murders of teenagers, often associated with a razor, are different. While most murder scenes that have been documented acts that were quiet and unobtrusive, they are crimes that took place in sight. Welling murder took place in broad daylight. As the stab in the park in Stoke Newington, which showed an alarming lack of concern about the possibility of being caught. In fact, most murders are usually declared "solved" in a few days - although many have not yet reached the courts

I was struck by the correlation between the most economically disadvantaged areas of London - East and South and the trail of murders that followed. Struck, too, how many young people caught dead in gang violence were of Afro-Caribbean.

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