Teenage refugee severely injured in hate crime attack in London

A teenage asylum seeker is in a critical condition after being brutally beaten up by a gang in a suspected hate crime incident, police say.

The London Metropolitan Police said in a statement on Saturday that the incident took place in Croydon, South part of the capital, where the 17-year-old was waiting with two friends at a bus stop, shortly before midnight when he was approached by a group of eight people.

“It is understood that the suspects asked the victim where he was from, and when they established that he was an asylum seeker they chased him and launched a brutal attack,” Detective Sergeant Kris Blamires said.

He added the “repeated blows to the head” resulted in serious head and facial injuries.

Blamires said the suspects managed to escape after the attack. He thanked the people who had gone right away to help the boy help as he lay on the ground unconscious.

“All communities stand together against hate and we would ask anyone with any information to come forward immediately,” he said.

The boy’s friends escaped the attack and suffered only minor injuries. No one has yet been arrested and an inquiry is ongoing.

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott suggested the government had not done enough to tackle such crimes.

“Sadly this is not an isolated incident but part of a sustained increase in hate crimes that this Tory Government is yet to offer any effective response to,” she said.

“We must make clear that there is no place for anti-foreigner myths, racism and hate in our society,” she added.

A hate crime generally refers to a criminal act that is motivated by bias against a specific group. Hate crimes may involve physical assault, bullying, harassment, damage to property, verbal abuse or insults, offensive graffiti and hate mail.

Hate crimes in the United Kingdom have risen to record numbers in the months following Britain’s referendum to exit the European Union, according to reports.

The United Kingdom held a referendum last June in which Britons voted by a 52-48 percent margin to leave the EU, the first member state ever to do so.

On Wednesday, UK Prime Minister Theresa May formally triggered the formal, two-year process of withdrawing Britain from the EU.

Official statistics show that hate crimes soared by more than 40 percent after last year’s Brexit referendum in the UK.