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Seven teenagers have been charged with murder after the stabbing deaths of 15-year-old Dau Akueng and 12-year-old Chol Achiek in Melbourne’s west earlier this month.

Dau and Chol were walking home from a basketball game on 6 September when they were allegedly attacked on separate streets in Cobblebank by masked assailants armed with machetes and long-edged weapons.

At the time, Victoria police Det Insp Graham Banks said the case had “the hallmarks of youth gang crime”, though the duo were not members.

Chol’s father, Chuti Ngong, described his son as a “lovely” and “peaceful boy” at a candlelight vigil last week, saying “he loved everybody – loved all the family, siblings, everybody”.

Terry Koumides, who met Dau in 2020 through a youth basketbal

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