Murder of young teacher makes women in London worry it could have been them

“Police said that she left her home to meet her friend in a local pub and it was just five minutes’ walk for her. We often go to this pub and it is also around five, 10 minutes walk for us. You feel it might have happened to you. It might happen anywhere,” Aliya Isaeva, a young mother who has been living in the area for about two years, told CNN.Isaeva and her husband moved to Kidbrooke because it felt like a good place to raise a family; a quiet London suburb, less than 20 minutes by train from central London. As a prime commuter neighborhood, Kidbrooke has benefited from huge investments in recent years. Newly-built apartment buildings with carefully landscaped lawns surround the train station. Across the tracks, many more are being built.Isaeva and her friend and fellow mum Sueda Ciftci said they visit the park where the 28-year-old teacher was killed last Friday at least once a week. They’ve always felt safe around there. “We chose this area because there are lots of parks. It’s a good family area,” Ciftci said.The neighborhood is still According to the safety app WalkSafe, there were 112 violent and sex crimes reported within a 1.5 kilometer (0.9 miles) radius of the park where Nessa was killed, just in July, the most recent month for which police figures are available. “Right now the [local] council is giving out panic alarms and they’re giving out pieces of paper saying you have to walk with somebody … how is it all on us to protect ourselves rather than on society and the government and the police to keep us alive?” Klingler said.At the vigil on Friday, Clive Efford, the local MP, said 78 women have died in violent attacks since Everard was murdered in May. Efford said a cultural change needed to take place in the UK. “Those sexist jokes that just slip off the tongue around the coffee machine, that’s where it starts, that’s the small steps that create the environment where people feel that they can become violent and aggressive towards women and girls, so if we want to bring about change, we have to live that change and be that change,” he said to applause from the crowd.The British government in July unveiled a new plan to tackle violence against women and girls. But campaigners have said it doesn’t go far enough. Refuge, a charity helping women who are victims of domestic violence, said the plan did not provide adequate funding and missed out on an opportunity to put real changes in place. Manuela Colombini, who has lived in the area for about 15 years, said she felt it was her duty to attend the vigil to express her solidarity with Nessa’s family and make her voice heard. “We want to feel safe. I have two young daughters and I don’t want them to grow up and think that they cannot go out in the streets or to a park that is near here where we take our dogs,” she said. “It’s important to be able to show that we are here and this is not acceptable,” she said.Most of those who gathered in Kidbrooke on Friday didn’t know Nessa personally. Like Colombini, they came because they wanted to support the community, take a stand and ensure her story is not forgotten. When one of the speakers encouraged the crowd to say Nessa’s name, they did, the sound of hundreds of voices echoing through the square: “Sabina Nessa. Sabina Nessa. Sabina Nessa.”This story has been updated to correct the month when Sarah Everard went missing. It was in March.CNN’s Nada Bashir, Mick Krever, Eliza Mackintosh and Kara Fox contributed to this article.