Shakilus Townsend pleaded for his mother as he bled to death after being stabbed at least four times with two knives and said "I don't want to die" , according to witnesses.
Police believe he was led by a teenage girl to a street in south London where he was ambushed by a gang of eight masked youths armed with a baseball bat and knives. He is the 33rd teenager murdered in Britain this year and the 18th in London alone.
A senior detective described it as "another senseless incident in which a young life has been taken away by a knife".
Det Chf Insp Cliff Lyons, who is leading the murder investigation, said Shakilus was set upon by at least three of the males in the group, who were wearing hooded tops and bandanas so only their eyes were visible. He was beaten with a baseball bat and stabbed at least four times with two knives near his home in Thornton Heath.
Witnesses said Shakilus was chased and the gang shouted "get him, he's over there" before beating him with the bat and stabbing him four times. It is believed he may have known the girl but did not know of the youths who attacked him.
Neighbour Dee Bamina, 35, tried to stem the bleeding from his single chest wound with a bath towel after another neighbour brought Shakilus into the communal doorway of her block of flats.
She said: "I knelt down next to the boy who was lying on the floor – he was crying and there was blood pouring from his chest. He kept saying 'I don't want to die' and 'where's my mum? All I want is my mum'.
"He looked so young and innocent, it was awful to see him lying there in that state. I asked him who his mum was but he was in too much pain to tell me.
"He was gasping and said 'I can't breathe'. Those were his last words."
Shakilus died in St George's Hospital, Tooting, south London, just after midnight.
In a press conference on Friday, Mr Lyons said: "Earlier on today I met Shaki's parents, Derek and Nicola, and as you might be able to imagine they can't understand why this has happened to their son.
"He was only 16 - he was a kid. Sadly he's another victim of knife crime in London.
"Shaki leaves behind a set of loving parents and also four brothers and sisters, all younger than him. He was the eldest of the family."
His grandfather Wayne Dyer, who was at the family home in Deptford, said: “My daughter Nikki phoned me at six o'clock this morning to tell me he had died. She just said to me, 'They have killed Shakilus'.
”She has been at the hospital with Shakilus's dad and is with the police, talking to them. I came here to look after the flat while she's there. I am waiting to talk to her, she's going to phone me.
”We're all very upset but I don't want to say anything more until I have spoken again to my daughter.”Witnesses claim that one of the suspected gang member nonchalantly demanded a free drink in a local shop just minutes after the horrific attack.
Meanwhile a 17-year-old boy who lives near where Shakilus was attacked said stabbings were depressingly commonplace - and often happened for no reason at all.
He said: "If he hadn't died, no one would have cared about this, it would have just been another stabbing. You grow up around here, you always see the yellow boards around and then you wake up and see 20 police vans outside.
"How are the police or the Government going to be able to sort this out if we as kids don't know why this sort of stuff's going on?"
Shakilus is the 18th victim this year of London's violent crime crisis. The attack comes four days after 16-year-old Ben Kinsella was stabbed to death in Islington.
