An 18-year-old man was shot in the head on Sunday evening in a city in the impoverished northern districts of Marseille against a backdrop of drug trafficking, we learned on Monday from police sources.
The homicide occurred shortly before 10 p.m. in the Cité du Mail, in the 14th arrondissement of Marseille, a spokeswoman for the Marseille police headquarters told AFP, confirming initial information from the daily. regional Provence.
The judicial police have been seized of the investigation.
“Vendetta logic”
This death brings to 16 the number of victims killed since the beginning of the year in the second city of France in violence generally linked to drug trafficking, according to an AFP count.
The victim was sitting on a sofa at the foot of a building plagued by drug trafficking.
Gunmen got out of a car and shot him before fleeing, police said.
Their vehicle was later found, charred.
The victim died on the spot, the firefighters told AFP.
Read alsoIn Marseille, gang wars against the backdrop of drug trafficking
Marseille has experienced several bloody episodes since the beginning of the year, against a backdrop of turf wars and the dynamics of a "
vendetta
" between drug traffickers.
The previous victim died on April 13: a 26-year-old man was killed in a shooting near Belle-de-Mai (3rd arrondissement) which also left two injured.
At the beginning of April, after three shootings which had killed three people in Marseille, including a 16-year-old teenager, the prosecutor of Marseille, Dominique Laurens, had evoked a “
logic of vendetta
” between rival gangs reigning over drug trafficking.
The year 2022 had already been particularly deadly in the Bouches-du-Rhône, with 32 victims of organized gang homicides, including 28 in Marseille, according to figures from the prosecution.
More than 30 of these gunshot deaths in 2022 were directly "
related to drug trafficking
", said the police headquarters.
