Police say they faced a weekend of 'significant, serious violence' in Manchester - with five stabbings.
One man died in Beswick - and Greater Manchester Police say three other incidents could have been fatal without the actions of police officers who were first on the scene.
The attacks were in Blackley, Gorton, Beswick, Openshaw, and Wythenshawe.
In the Beswick knifing Mohamed Khashkhush, 24, has been charged with the murder of Hamze Ismail, who was stabbed at around 2am on Sunday in Hinckley Street.
In the Blackley and Wythenshawe incidents medical assistance provided by police officers saved the lives of the victims.
Assistant Chief Constable, Robert Potts, said: "It has been a weekend of significant serious violence. At Blackley on Sunday, a 31-year-old man was stabbed in the neck and remains in a serious but stable condition in hospital.
"We have arrested a 29-year-old on suspicion of attempted murder. He remains in custody.
"A 17-year-old man was stabbed in Gorton. He has serious injuries, but they re non life-threatening. The investigation continues into that matter.
"A 16-year-old girl was stabbed at a house in Openshaw over the weekend. A 17-year-old boy has been charged with attempted murder, rape, and possession of an offensive weapon.
"We do not assess these as random attacks. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families.
"In relation to two victims, I believe the medical treatment provided by officers at the scene has probably saved the lives of the two victims.
"I would like to pay testament to the tremendous work by officers over the weekend at really harrowing crime scenes, and providing initial treatment to victims, some of whom have suffered awful injuries. I believe two of the victims are alive because of the medical action taken by officers.
"In the Blackley incident in Southdown Crescent, that was the case.
"The other was in Wythenshawe, which took place in a domestic setting and the medical feedback is that actions saved the life of that individual. That was on Friday night into the early hours of Saturday morning.
"The wound suffered was the severing of an artery. The victim was a man and a woman was arrested."
In the Wythenshawe incident, a 46-year-old woman was charged after a man was stabbed at a property in the Sharston area.
Police said in a statement: "Shortly after 1.45pm on Saturday May 4 police were called to Edwards Court on Birchtree Drive to reports that a man in his 60s had been stabbed in the arm. The man was taken to hospital with serious injuries where he is now recovering.
"Janet Kearns of Minehead Avenue, Withington, has been charged with section 18 wounding with intent and was remanded to appear before Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court on May 6 2019."
Teenage boy charged after a 16-year-old girl was stabbed in Openshaw
ACC Potts said that two operations, King and Valiant, were already on-going in the region to target street robberies.
"Half of our recorded knife crime is in a personal robbery setting. It has a significant impact on our approach to the carrying of knives. A lot of that work takes place in the city centre, and south Manchester, but it also operates around the rest of Greater Manchester."
He said that the town centres of Bolton, Bury, and Oldham, in areas around the night-time economy of pubs, clubs, and take-aways had significant knife crime.
Man appears in court charged with the murder of a young man in Beswick
In Manchester city centre Operation Custodian specifically targets areas around the night-time economy. "We know that a significant amount of our knife crime takes place during this period.
"We have received funding from the Home Office of £4m to tackle serious violence, particularly involving knives, and other weapons, focused on young people.
"We will be using that money to increase our policing resources - engaged in offender targeting - people who we know habitually carry knives. We will be increasing our intelligence resources, and investigative resources.
"We will also be increasing our analytical capacity to better understand the problem.
"Some of that activity is focused on the here and now - the short term challenges that we face and other cities across the UK.
"In addition to that, our longer term work, we are already involved with local authorities across Greater Manchester with schools, pupil referral units, public health, and, crucially, parents and communities.
"We need to educate young people that carrying a knife does not make them safer. It actually, statistically increases the risk of them being a victim of knife crime. We need to reach the situation in society where to carry a knife is a socially unacceptable thing to do."
"We will take a very aggressive approach towards offenders in terms of investigation for this type of crime. But we are very much aware that police is only one of the resources that needs to be brought to bare in order to really have a long term affect."
He said that of £100m pledged by the government for use in tackling violent crime, especially knife crime amongst the young, half was still not allocated.
Today the The Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester has criticised the Home Secretary for "breaking promises and abandoning communities" as emergency knife crime funding is confirmed.
Greater Manchester Police will receive the £4m over the next 12 months.
Deputy Mayor Bev Hughes said: “It is extremely disappointing that the Home Secretary has failed to follow through on his promise to provide police with £100m of desperately needed funding to tackle knife crime.
“The £4m allocated to GMP is far short of what we were led to believe and is barely a sticking plaster for an issue that is causing significant harm to our communities.
“In Greater Manchester, we stand ready to use the additional funding that was promised to make a real difference for our young people and communities, but once again the Government has pulled the rug from under us – a move that will leave our communities feeling abandoned.
“That the allocation of funding is based on hospital data is also very short-sighted. Once a victim of knife crime is in the hospital it is too late – we need to act now and act earlier to prevent our young people from carrying knives in the first place.
“Today’s announcement has instilled a complete lack of confidence that this Government is truly taking this issue as seriously as the Home Secretary’s warm words have previously suggested.”
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