Close to 100 people gathered on Tuesday to mourn Qayyum Balogun, the 21-year-old that was fatally stabbed in Dublin city centre earlier this month. He was laid to rest in Newtown Cross Lawn Cemetery, just north of the town of Drogheda. “I don’t have much to say but I know he’s resting in the hands of the lord,” Teslimot Balogun, Qayyum’s mother, said after the service. “I’m really in pain. He’s irreplaceable. He’s my first son and I will miss him forever and ever. I can’t bear the pain but I know god is giving me my strength.” Both Teslimot and Qayyum’s stepmother, Loveth Patrick, appealed for justice for Qayyum. They described him as an “innocent boy” and said that he did not deserve what happened to him. Beside them, another mourner said Qayyum was lucky that he had been blessed with “two mums”. “He’s a loved child,” Teslimot said. “He does his own thing, he doesn’t cause trouble and he loves everybody.”Qayyum Balogun was killed on Clarendon Street. Imam Nooh of the Dundalk Muslim community guided an Islamic burial for Qayyum, performing funeral prayers and dividing the congregation into rows of men and women. He explained that in Islam, women surround an infant as they enter the world, while men encompass the graveside as they leave. As Imam Nooh finished the prayers, men tossed handfuls of soil over Qayyum’s body to fill the grave.Qayyum was born in Dublin in 2004, not long after his parents had moved to Ireland from Nigeria. They settled in Dundalk when he was a boy, and Qayyum was living there in the Ecco Road area with his father Ibrahim Balogun, his stepmother and three of his siblings at the time of his death. Family gather after the funeral of Qayyum Balogun, Ibrahim Balogun, (father) Teslimot, (mother) and Loveth Patrick, (stepmother) with siblings including; Alimat, Alyah, Ayomide, Tolu, Ganiyu and Gift, at Newtown Cross Lawn Cemetery, Drogheda, Co Louth.