Marseille: three young men shot dead


The victims were traveling in a car when unidentified persons opened fire from another vehicle, before leaving the scene.





By IM with AFP

Firefighters found the death of three young men in Marseille, shot dead on Sunday May 21. (illustrative image)
© XAVIER LEOTY / MAXPPP / PHOTOPQR/SUD OUEST/MAXPPP

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IFirefighters and the Marseille police announced the death of three young men, Sunday May 21, killed early in the morning in a rather residential district of 11e district, in the east of the city. Shortly after 5 a.m., the attackers, in a car, opened fire with a Kalashnikov on another vehicle in which there were five young men, according to the police source. Three of the occupants were fatally hit. The firefighters, who intervened shortly before 6 a.m., pronounced the death of the three victims on the spot, men aged around 25 years.

The victims had left a nightclub shortly before and drove for several hundred meters when their car was targeted, according to this source. Three of the men targeted were fatally injured, the fire doctor noting their deaths on the spot. The other two were not injured and one managed to escape.

A car on fire

The assailants then fled in their vehicle. A car on fire was found burnt down shortly afterwards, a usual modus operandi in settling scores related to narcotics »although it was not immediately confirmed that it was the one used by the attackers.

The investigation was handed over to the federal police. According to a source close to the investigation, the men targeted, from a city affected by drug trafficking, were known to the police. The police chief of Bouches-du-Rhône, Frédérique Camilleri, went to the scene of this new shooting, while the settling of scores on the background of drug trafficking are on the rise in Marseille.

21 dead in drug trafficking since the beginning of the year

The district where this new attack took place is not known to harbor drug trafficking points, but the prefect assured that all police services are mobilized to find the perpetrators of these heinous crimes and to dismantle the networks of traffickers responsible for this violence ». This fight continues with determination »she insisted, pointing out that over the past weekend alone five people have been arrested in possession of weapons in connection with drug trafficking and three Kalashnikovs, a machine gun and a handgun have been seized ».

According to an AFP count, this new attack brings the toll of violence against a background of drug trafficking to 21 dead since the beginning of the year, with 19 shot dead, one lynched to death and one found in the trunk. a burned car, presumably also shot dead. The victims are generally young men, sometimes teenagers, located at the bottom of the trafficking ladder, lookouts or sellers at deal points, targeted by killers from rival gangs.




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