Two days after celebrating his 15th birthday, a South London teenager was added to this week’s grisly list of violent deaths in the area when he was shot dead in his home yesterday morning.

Two men are thought to have burst through the front door of the boy’s home in Diamond Street, Peckham, and shot him at close range. He spoke his dying words to his sister, who is in her twenties, as she cradled him and administered first aid in a fruitless attempt to save his life. Paramedics also tried to do what they could but the boy died in hospital an hour after the shooting.

It was the third murder in Peckham in four days. Police were also investigating last night any potential link to the fatal shooting of James Smarrt-Ford, 16, a few miles away at Streatham Ice Rink on Saturday.

Only a few months ago no one under the age of 20 had been charged with a gun crime. In Peckham, though, ghosts are always present. Police gathering at their cordon across the end of Diamond Street were huddling beneath a new development of flats named Stephen Lawrence House, in memory of the black teenager stabbed to death by white youths at a bus stop in Eltham, southeast London, in 1993.

Yesterday’s shooting took place a stone’s throw from where Damilola Taylor, a ten-year-old Nigerian schoolboy, bled to death in a stairwell after being stabbed with a broken bottle almost seven years ago. Today a road sign points to the Damilola Taylor Centre, a haven for 8 to 19-year-olds.

Yet apart from a funeral parlour there are few signs that the area is thriving economically. A boarded-up pub and an abandoned branch of Kennedy’s Sausages show no signs of being resurrrected.

Detective Superintendent Gary Richardson, of Operation Trident, a police initiative to investigate black-on-black crime, spoke sombrely after visiting the victim’s home, a pleasant two-storey brick terrace.

He emphasised that the dead boy was neither known to the police nor belonged to any gang. He had attended St Michael’s secondary school, in Bermondsey, and regularly went to the Celestial Church of Christ near his home.

“We have a young man in his home in the early hours of the morning. To be shot in one’s home is a terrible thing for all the family, friends and associates,” Mr Richardson said.

Police were uncertain whether the boy was the intended target but believe that his house had been identified by the killers. The victim is understood to have at least one older brother.

Detectives were trying to piece together the household’s family tree. The children are believed to have been born in Britain to an immigrant family.

The dead boy’s father was away from home at the time of the killing.

Police will have to try to coax the boy’s sister to repeat his last words. “It’s a dreadful, dreadful incident for her,” Mr Richardson said.

The killing happened at about 1am. A witness saw two men escaping along Chandler Way but was unable to tell whether they were black or white.

Mr Richardson was already investigating the killing of James Smarrt-Ford when he took control of the latest murder inquiry. James was killed when he was shot twice after gunmen burst into a disco at the ice rink on Saturday. As yet there is no evidence that the killings are related.

As hoodies gathered to watch police searching for clues and handing out leaflets to neighbours, another poignant scene was taking place 100 yards up Southampton Way.

A pink teddy bear, a single red rose and some carnations had been placed on a patch of grass, along with a handwritten poem: “Too much life to live for, too young to die, May you sleep now with the Creator, it’s hard to say goodbye.”

It was here that Javorie Crighton, 21, who was on bail for drugs offences, was stabbed to death on Saturday. Last night a man was charged with his murder. Orando Madden, 23, from Peckham, was due to appear at Greenwich Magistrates’ Court this morning.

“It’s a joke, innit?” a 67-year-old cleaner said as she stopped to examine the tributes. “These lives being wasted. What’s the world coming to?”

A five-minute walk away, through Peckham High Street, leads to Clayton Road. On Sunday, a Nigerian man in his forties was shot dead while another man at the same address survived after apparently being shot repeatedly in the torso.

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