A teenager has been charged with the murder of 15-year-old Zaian Aimable-Lina, one of two boys to be killed within about an hour of each other in separate stabbing incidents in London on Thursday evening. The suspect, who is also aged 15 and whom police have not named because of his age, was arrested on Saturday and is due to appear at Bromley magistrates court in south London on Tuesday. Another 15-year-old has been released under investigation after being arrested on suspicion of murder on Friday. He has been bailed until late January, police said. A postmortem gave the cause of Zaian’s death as a stab wound to the heart. A vigil was held over the weekend at Ashburton Park in Croydon, where the stabbing took place. Dozens of people gathered at a gate leading into the park on Saturday evening. Candles were lit and people consoled each other following the latest tragedy in the capital. There was also an increased police presence, with officers patrolling up and down the road adjacent to the park. The second teenager stabbed to death on Thursday evening, a 16-year-old boy in Yiewsley, west London, has yet to be named. A 16-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of his murder on Sunday. The two incidents made last year the deadliest on record in terms of homicides of teenagers. The 30 recorded in 2021 surpassed the 29 in 2008 – the previous worst toll. As the news emerged, campaigners said efforts to tackle knife crime had been inadequate and it was now so prevalent that it was becoming normalised. “Knife crime is accepted by this generation as part-and-parcel of growing up and that’s completely unacceptable,” said Patrick Green, the chief executive of the anti-knife crime charity the Ben Kinsella Trust, which was set up in 2008 after the fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Ben in north London. “It shows that not enough has been done and, if I’m being really critical, then I’d say the approach to tackling it has been scattergun. We have to sustain our response to knife crime, it has to be over the long term and not just one- and two-year funding for projects. It is a societal problem which will continue unless it is addressed properly.”