An act of revenge resulted in a shooting spree that left three people dead early Sunday in Marseille, where lethal violence has risen since the turn of the year amid gang rivalry over the booming drug trade.
Shortly after 5 A.M. this morning, the unidentified assailants opened fire with a Kalashnikov on five men in their twenties. Both the executioners and their victims had been travelling by vehicle in the 11th arrondissement in the city’s east side, according to a police source.
The victims had just left a nightclub and had only traveled a few hundred meters when their car was attacked.
The attackers fled in their car. A burned automobile was discovered shortly thereafter, which is a regular tactic in drug-related shootings; however, it was not immediately clear if this was indeed the car used by the assailants in the attack.
The victims hailed from a neighborhood plagued by significant drug trafficking activity, acknowledged the French police.
According to an AFP report, this new attack brings the death toll from drug trafficking violence to 21 since the beginning of the year, with 19 killed by bullets.
The victims are typically young males–sometimes teenagers–at the bottom of the trafficking ladder, or lookouts for dealers at drug points who are targeted by mercenaries from rival gangs.