Two men were shot dead on Sunday in Sevran, less than 48 hours after a shooting linked to drug trafficking which left one dead and several seriously injured in this town of Seine-Saint-Denis (AFP / PATRICK KOVARIK)
Two men were shot dead in the street on Sunday in Sevran, less than 48 hours after a shooting which left one dead and several injured in the same town of Seine-Saint-Denis, facts attributed by the authorities to crime linked to to drug trafficking.
The two men were killed around 6:00 p.m., Allée des Lilas, in the Montceleux-Pont Blanc district, less than 2 km from the scene of the fatal shooting on Friday evening.
They were aged 35 and 31, according to police chief Laurent Nuñez, and were known for violence and drug trafficking, a police source told AFP.
“We have good reason to believe that this evening’s events are not completely unrelated to drug trafficking,” added the prefect during a press briefing at the Sevran police station.
Shortly after the events, two bodies lay on the ground under white sheets, at the foot of the Edmond-Michelet neighborhood house, near a park with children’s games, noted an AFP journalist. A screen was installed to hide the bodies and the places, secured by yellow tape.
Judicial police officers examine the crime scene where two men were shot and killed in Sevran, May 5, 2024 (AFP / Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT)
People in tears stood nearby.
“I was at home when I heard shots, I was very scared. It’s terrible because I saw them growing up, but when you choose this path, unfortunately it’s prison or death.” testified a resident of the neighborhood in her fifties, who requested anonymity. One of the victims is a father, according to local residents.
Two mobile force units were sent to the site, said a police source. The suspect(s) in the homicides fled, according to another police source.
During the night from Friday to Saturday, a 28-year-old man was killed and four others injured during a shooting in the Cité des Beaudottes, an emblematic district of this town of 52,000 inhabitants located 25 km northeast of Paris.
Three other gunshot wounds also showed up at the hospital later in the night, one of them leaving before being examined.
– “Lusts” –
At this stage, “we must be extremely careful” about the link between these two cases, insisted Prefect Nuñez, recalling that another homicide had also taken place in Aulnay-sous-Bois, the neighboring commune, a few days earlier .
Gendarmes in charge of securing the premises where two men were shot dead, in Sevran, May 5, 2024. (AFP / Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT)
After Marseille, Sevran was the subject of an anti-drug operation “XXL square net” on March 25 with the aim of stopping trafficking. In this city, the Rougemont city deal point had been “eradicated”, the police headquarters said on Saturday.
“Obviously we are aware that when we do that we destabilize traffic, we create greed and sometimes there are clashes (…) to recover territories,” added Laurent Nuñez on Sunday. “But we will still continue,” he added.
“There are still many battles to be won,” but the fight against drug trafficking is a “war that is far from being lost,” he said.
Friday, the shooting occurred around 11:45 p.m. when two people arrived in a parking lot in a Peugeot 5008. The passenger got out of the vehicle then fired several times before fleeing, said a police source.
On site, 25 7.62 cartridge cases, a caliber used in particular for Kalashnikov-type weapons, were found.
Several mobile force units, including the CRS8, a unit specializing in the fight against urban violence, were sent to the area as reinforcements on Saturday.
An investigation had been opened for intentional homicide by an organized gang and attempted intentional homicide by an organized gang, the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office told AFP. It was entrusted to the criminal brigade of the Paris judicial police, just like the investigation relating to the second shooting.
In a press release published on Saturday, the city’s DVG mayor, Stéphane Blanchet, denounced an “unbelievable outburst” of violence which he attributes to “dirty money from the drug economy”, an “economy of death which rots our cities.
A total of 315 homicides or attempted homicides linked to drug trafficking were recorded in France between January and November 2023 in police zones, an increase of 57% over one year, according to the national police.