Two people were killed in the center of the city of Marseille, France, on Thursday evening after being shot by a masked man who fled.
The man got out of a car with a Kalashnikov pistol and shot at three people walking on the street, two of them died, and the gunman fled in a car with fake license plates, which was later found on fire.
The city’s police chief, Frédérique Camilleri, told television channel BFMTV on Friday that it appears to be a “settlement of scores” between groups of drug traffickers operating in Marseille.
Camilleri acknowledged that violent acts linked to drug trafficking in the city have increased in recent months.
“The reckoning knows no boundaries between drug groups,” he said, adding that police closed several drug outlets in the city, exacerbating the rivalry.
Fusillade à Marseille: pour la prefète, “c’est an episode de plus dans cette guerre que se liverent les narcotrafiquants sur le dos des Marseillais” pic.twitter.com/rqHzSjWnXj
– BFMTV (@BFMTV) September 29, 2023
“The work we are doing will take time, but we will face it with determination. We want to show that we will not stop,” Camilleri said.
According to Camilleri, 400 police officers have arrived in the city in the past three years and another 70 are expected in the coming months.
Source: DN
