A man in his thirties was shot dead in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday in a city of Marseille gangrenous by drug trafficking, we learned from police sources. "There were shots fired at the city of La Paternelle, a man in his thirties died," a police source told AFP, confirming information from RMC.
The victim was at a drug outlet, another police source said. The city La Paternelle, located in the north of the second city of France, is at the heart of a struggle between rival groups to take control of its juicy points of deal. The man was known for drug-related offences, according to the same source. The investigation is before the judicial police.
22 dead since the beginning of the year
This new homicide brings the death toll from the violence against a backdrop of drug trafficking to 22 since the beginning of the year, with 20 people shot dead, one lynched to death and one found in the trunk of a burned car, presumably shot dead.
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The victims are usually young men, sometimes teenagers, located at the bottom of the trafficking ladder, lookouts or sellers at the points of deal, targeted by killers of rival gangs. But some, like a 43-year-old mother who was shot in the middle of her home on May 10, could be collateral victims.
Territorial conflicts between traffickers for the control of lucrative deal points installed in cities of the city are turning into a "vendetta", had estimated in early April the prefect Frédérique Camilleri and the prosecutor of Marseille Dominique Laurens.