POLICE have until late today to question two teenagers held in connection with the fatal stabbing on Friday night of 14-year-old Paul Erhahon.

Yesterday, they were granted a 36-hour extension to the custody period so that they could continue their interviews with a 13-year-old from Leytonstone and a 19-year-old from Wanstead.

Meanwhile, police say they have not yet found the weapon used to kill Paul and seriously wound his 15-year-old friend, named as Steven Mafolabomi.

They are asking local people to search their gardens and bin areas.

Steven remains in critical condition in hospital.

Local people have been voicing their fears about continuing "warfare" between local, mainly teenage, gangs - a Waltham Forest-wide crisis highlighted in the Waltham Forest Guardian and on this website over the past few months.

In this instance, some locals are claiming an ongoing conflict between groups from the Cathall estate, Leytonstone, and the area near Langthorne Road where the boys were stabbed, naming it the "Thatch" after the former Thatched House pub which stood at the corner of Crownfield Road and the High Road.

Paul and a 15-year-old friend were found seriously injured in Hall Road, at the junction with Buttermere Close, Leytonstone, around 8pm on Friday evening.

It is believe they received their wounds in an clash with a group of youths in the entrance to Gean Court, Langthorne Road, and staggered the 200 yards to where they were found.

Paul died in hospital that evening.

Police are appealing for anyone who was present during the incident to come forward, along with any witnesses or anyone with information.

Neighbours of Paul's Nigerian family, who live close to where the boys were found, have described Paul's mother as overcome with grief when she found out what had happened.

She is reported as saying that Paul was stabbed on a previous occasion and the family moved his school as a result.

The boy is said to have lived for his music and was a keen rapper under the name MC HellRaiser.

On Saturday and yesterday family and friends have been laying flowers where the boys were found in the street.

This killing is the latest of a spate of stabbing incidents involving young people in Waltham Forest.

On Thursday, March 29, two teenage boys were stabbed during a clash in Chingford near the junction of Old Church Road and New Road at around 4pm.

A 13-year-old sustained serious stomach wounds and another boy, 15, was found nearby with stab injuries to his leg.

The attack on Paul and his friend took place as The Radio 4 Any Questions panel, speaking at the Score Centre in Leyton less than a mile away, were tackling a question about what steps were needed to tackle knife and gang crime among young people.