Horrified worshippers are helping police with the last movements of Bilal Kargbo who was fatally stabbed after leaving his mosque.
The 26-year-old, from Borough, was formally identified only on Tuesday by his distraught mother, 11 days after his death from stab wounds in a busy shopping street.
The father of three, who worked at a phone shop in Peckhem, died of a stab wound to his chest in Blenheim Grove, Peckham, and was pronounced dead at the scene at 3:51 P.M. on April 28.
Crowds attended a candle-lit vigil held in Blenheim Grove on April 29, at a shrine of flowers and photos.
Kargbo, who had started to train as a lawyer at Lambeth College but retrained as a plumber to help his mother develop properties, was well known to fellow Muslims at the Peckham Islamic Centre in nearby Choumert Grove. Kargbo’s mother Zainab Fofanah, who has a home in nearby Southampton Way, said: “I am feeling so much pain. I gave birth to him. I brought him here when he was 10, because he was in danger from the war in Sierra Leone. Children were being taken to be soldiers. I thought it was the right thing to do and he was soon at St. Peter’s Primary School in Walworth and that was much safer.”
“I took him back to Sierra Leone for six years because he was misbehaving, but we came back and he started studying law at Lambeth College. I wanted to redevelop houses so he stopped that course and trained to be a plumber – for me. Now he can’t even buy me a McDonald’s. He was engaged. He had a fiancee, Khadija Kamara and they have a seven-month-old boy, Kahlil. He has two other kids.”
She continued, “He had so much to live for. Now I want to take my son home to rest in peace. He always said he wanted to return to Sierra Leone but he could not go without a new passport. It arrived last Friday.”
His cousin, mother-of-two, Emma Sesay, added, “We are going through a lot.
He was like my brother; the brother I never had, because we were brought up together. I have done work in the community with bereaved families but this time it is mine. We grew up hearing about it, but now it has happened to us.” “A friend called me to tell me he was dead. My life changed from that moment. Even now I cannot believe it has happened. Now I have to be strong for my family and my boys.”
Kargbo was devout – he prayed every day, fasted for Ramadan and went to the mosque on Fridays.
A second vigil, organised by Abdulrahman Musa-Johnson, was held at the Walworth Methodist Church Peace Garden on May 5, attended by parliamentary candidates Neil Coyle and Simon Hughes.
He said, “Mr Musa-Johnson, a childhood friend of Kargbo’s, is now organising a peace march for all faiths in the area on July 2 and to open a peace garden in Camberwell. “We want people to find solace.”
Tuesday May 30, 2017.
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