two dead and four injured in shooting

Two people were killed and four others injured late Saturday evening in a shooting in a city in the northern districts of Marseille, AFP learned this Sunday from a police source. The shooting took place a little after 11 p.m. in the city of Iris, in the 14th arrondissement of France’s second city.

According to information from BFM Marseille Provence and the daily newspaper Provencethe victims, all men aged around 25 to 35, were in an association premises which was the target of shots with a Kalashnikov-type assault rifle. The two affected victims died on the spot.

A vehicle was found on fire a little later in the same district, without it being established whether it was the one used by the attackers. Contacted, the Marseille prosecutor’s office had not yet responded on Sunday morning.

The motive for the shooting still unknown

The motive for the shooting is not known but several cities in the northern districts of Marseille are plagued by poverty and drug trafficking. A young man was shot dead in the same city of Iris on July 10, in a probable “narchomicide”, these homicides against a backdrop of drug trafficking.

Violence linked to rivalries over drug trafficking caused a record number of 49 deaths in 2023. But they are significantly down in 2024. Before this shooting, there were 13 deaths in shootings of this type, including 9 in narchomicides officially confirmed by the prosecution.