He managed to escape the flames, by a miracle.
A 17-year-old young man from Carpentras was found Monday morning near a charred vehicle.
The teenager, burned over a large part of his body, was also beaten and stabbed in the abdomen, according to Le Dauphiné Libéré and La Provence.
Despite these injuries, he was found alive by the police, but his vital prognosis was still in jeopardy at the end of Monday.
Contacted, the Avignon public prosecutor's office confirms that investigations have been launched, without being able to provide further details at this stage.
The Marseille research section is investigating alongside the Apt research brigade.
According to the local press, it was a motorist who spotted a burned car early Monday morning on a deserted and winding road near the Sénanque abbey, a few kilometers from the village of Gordes.
Arriving on site, on the edge of the D 177, the gendarmes and firefighters discovered a 17-year-old young man who was still lying alive but burned, with part of his clothes removed.
According to La Provence, he was trapped inside the burning vehicle, but managed to escape from the car.
Vital prognosis still engaged
He was transported in absolute emergency to the Conception hospital in Marseille.
The burns covered approximately 40% of the body, and he also had a stab wound to the abdomen and marks of blows, adds Le Dauphiné Libéré.
At the end of Monday afternoon, he was in intensive care and his vital prognosis was still in jeopardy, while the perpetrators of the attack were still actively sought.
Still according to the local press, investigators favor the theory of a settling of scores against a backdrop of drug trafficking.
The name of the victim “appears regularly”, Le Dauphiné Libéré learned from a police source.
The teenager was allegedly kidnapped in the Carpentras area, before the car headed towards Bagnols-sur-Cèze, the victim suffering several hours of confinement and violence.
At daybreak, his captors allegedly set the vehicle on fire, leaving the young man inside, and fled in another car.
Also read: France powerless in the face of drug trafficking: staffing levels, procedures... the police are fed up
A few hours later, a new tragedy punctuated the territory: a 25-year-old man was shot dead in the night from Monday to Tuesday near a drug sales point in a district in the south of Avignon, we learned. AFP from police and judicial sources.
The events occurred near a deal point, the Avignon prosecutor's office told the press agency, with investigators currently favoring the possibility of narchomicide.
The judicial police were contacted.
This new homicide, which would therefore be linked to drug trafficking, comes on the second day of the trial for the murder of Éric Masson, a police officer shot dead in broad daylight at a deal point in the historic center of Avignon in May 2021. Le Vaucluse, a department plagued by poverty, recorded six homicides linked to drug trafficking in 2023, twice as many as the previous year.
Even if this figure remains far from the fifty deaths from drug trafficking recorded in Marseille, the regional epicenter of this scourge, it testifies to the same logic of “turf wars”, according to the Avignon prosecutor, Florence Galtier.