TWO teenagers have been locked up for more than 20 years for the killing of schoolboy Yemurai Kanyangarara.

Yemurai, aged 16 from Belvedere, was stabbed in the neck on July 1 last year, in Upper Wickham Lane, Welling.

The four-week Old Bailey trial heard Yemurai and three friends boarded a number 96 bus at Bexleyheath shopping centre travelling towards Welling.

Unbeknown to them, the killers were on another 96 bus in front.

After Yemurai stepped off the bus, sixteen-year-old Osman Bangura stabbed him in the neck.

The murder weapon has never been found but 15-year-old Isaac Walters' DNA was on the blade of another knife found by police along the defendant’s alleged escape route.

While giving evidence he claimed he found the knife "on some ledge" while waiting for the 96 bus in Dartford.

After a week of deliberating, a jury of eight men and four women found Bangura guilty of murder and Walters guilty of manslaughter on April 26.

A third boy, aged 16, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was acquitted.

Today (June 6) Bangura of Wilmot Close, Camberwell, was locked up for 14 years in a Young Offenders Institute while Walters, of Marchwood Close, Peckham, was sentenced to 8.5 years in a Young Offenders Institute.

They will both have 335 days deducted from their sentence as this has already been served while they waited in custody for their trial.

Walters was also told he will serve half of his sentence and will be released on license.

Judge Stephen Kramer told the pair: “As the court has seen from CCTV footage this was a shocking killing involving teenage school boys with the forceful use of a knife in broad daylight in a public place.

Kramer told the court the reason for the killing could have been a number of reasons including a rivalry between schools, a revenge attack following the stabbing of Osman Bangora a few days before or even a case of mistaken identity.

He said: “Yemurai Kanyangarara was sadly the person who became your target.”

Speaking outside the court this afternoon, Yemurai's mother Sharon Jambawo said: "Obviously for me there isn’t any amount of time that is going to bring him right back.

"I just feel like his life was taken and he has just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"No words really can describe how I feel at the moment.

"It is such a relief that the whole thing has come to an end now.

"At least we have got some results.

"I will miss him forever, he was such a special son."