PICTURED: NYC migrant, 24, stabbed to death in line for food after fight over woman at Randalls Island tent city - as gang violence sweeps camp that's full of armed rivals

A New York City migrant who was stabbed to death in the line for food during a fight over a woman has been pictured.

Cops were called to Randalls Island in the city's East River just before 7.30pm after the deadly fight broke out in the cafeteria tent.

Witnesses told police Dafren Cabello, 24, was attacked by four men after reportedly chatting to a Peruvian man's girlfriend.

'The fight was next to the dining room but they fought over a woman,' said Jose David.

'The Venezuelan took the woman from the Peruvian, and the Peruvian stabbed the boy with Venezuelan nationality twice.'

Young father Dafren Cabello, 24, had been in the US for just a month when he was stabbed to death on Randalls Island after leaving his home in Venezuela

Conditions are grim in the 3,000 capacity tent city, New York's largest migrant shelter, as winter sets in on Randalls Island in New York's East River 

NYPD officers found Canizalez with a stab wound to his chest. The 24-year-old was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced deceased

Asylum seekers at the 3,000-capacity tented city have warned that the center is splitting on ethnic lines into armed 'camps' with Hispanics, Africans and Haitians pitted against each other.

And the center's one cafeteria has become a particular flashpoint where the groups rub up against each other while queueing for food.

'There are definitely camps,' Moroccan migrant Nabil Jajhlaq told the New York Post.

'There is a lot of stealing, if you put your phone down or your charger for a moment, they take it immediately.

'Any of your stuff that you don't have they will take.'

'Everyone has a knife,' migrant Mauricio Pinto added.

The center opened in August amid a report from city officials that more than 100,000 migrants had passed through the five boroughs since 2022.

As of December 2023, more than 140,000 migrants had flooded into the city over an 18-month period, stretching the city to its financial limits.

The shelter opened its doors in August 2023, replacing a smaller center (pictured) that opened a year prior

The city authorities have spent about $3.5 billion on the thousands of migrants and nearly 70,000 remain in city shelters as winter takes hold.

More than 33,000 have been bussed to New York City by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and New York Mayor Eric Adams sued 17 bus companies involved for $700million last week.

He has also issued an executive order demanding they give him 32 hours notice of new arrivals, prompting some to drop their passengers off in neighboring New Jersey and pointing them to trains heading to New York.

Despite the bill, 'not one bus from Texas' had complied, Adams' chief counsel Lisa Zornberg said.

Adams promised to 'double efforts' to keep migrants safe in the wake of the latest attack but new arrivals said they felt in fear for their lives.

'There is not much security, and they are far away,' Roger Castillo said.

'It happens so fast.'

Castillo spoke to Cabello just 20 minutes before he died and described him as a 'good person, a good friend'.

'I was speaking with him yesterday and it was normal,' he added.

Cabello was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead from stab wounds to the neck and chest.

His brother Eduin Daniel Nobrega said the pair had crossed the southern border in Texas last month.

'I feel very bad knowing that my brother is dead,' he told the NY Daily News from his home in Denver.

'My brother was a good, responsible father, a good son and a good brother.

'One day we decided to leave our country of Venezuela for a better future, help our children and family. He was not a man of trouble. He really liked to work to earn an honest living.

'Our mother, family, is very upset knowing that she cannot do anything since we are a low-income family,' he added.

'I am Dafren's only relative here in the United States.' Police arrested Moises Coronado, 27, and charged him with second degree murder.

He is currently being held at the Eric M Taylor Centre ahead of a court appearance at Manhattan Criminal Court on January 12.

'The incident that happened at our Randalls Island humanitarian relief center is a tragedy and currently under investigation,' said City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak.

'At least one alleged person responsible is currently in custody and our security - who acted admirably and professionally in this incredibly difficult situation - is redoubling their efforts to ensure that everyone on site continues to be and feels safe,' she told Gothamist in an email on Sunday.

'The overwhelming majority of migrants in our care came to our city in search of a better life and the American Dream.

'The small number of those disrupting that journey for the rest of the migrants in our care by acting violently will face enforcement to the fullest extent of the law.'