• A 26-year-old man, wounded in the last shooting of the night from Wednesday to Thursday near the neighborhood of the Belle de Mai, died of his wounds.
  • Two other men, aged 21 and 30, were seriously injured.

One of the three men seriously wounded in the five shootings that hit Marseille on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, in the popular neighborhoods, finally died of his wounds, we learned Thursday night from a source close to the investigation. This man is 26 years old, said this source, confirming the initial information of the daily La Provence.

This death brings to 15 the number of victims killed since the beginning of the year in the second city of France in violence generally linked to drug trafficking, according to an AFP count.

This young man had been wounded in the last shooting of the night, around 00:30, towards the district of Belle de Mai in the 3rd arrondissement. Two other men, aged 21 and 30, were also seriously injured. It was not specified Thursday night if the vital prognosis of these two victims were still engaged.

Previously, no less than four shootings had been recorded across the city in barely an hour.

A 15-year-old injured man

A first shooting had taken place shortly before midnight Wednesday night, cited Felix-Pyat (3rd arrondissement), making one wounded, had explained the prefecture of police. The person affected is a 15-year-old teenager, the Marseille prosecutor's office told AFP.

According to the prosecutor's office, confirming the information of La Provence, three sequences of shots had then been heard through the city, a priori without causing injuries. Around 23:30 p.m., shots were first fired in the 4th arrondissement. A 51-year-old man, wounded, had been taken care of by the emergency services, after having "received blows".

Then "two shootings" had broken out, always "without making known wounded", around midnight and then around 00:30, "near the city of Busserine then near the city Consolat", known to house points of sale of drugs.

Five separate investigations have been opened into these facts, the prosecutor's office said.

"A logic of vendetta"

No indication had yet been given Thursday night on the reasons for these shootings and no direct link had yet been established with the drug trafficking that plagues the neighborhoods targeted by these shootings. Thus, the three people affected at the Belle de Mai are not known for drug trafficking, had insisted the prosecutor's office.

The shooting came less than two weeks after three shootings that left three people dead in Marseille, including a 16-year-old boy, and eight wounded. For these shootings on the night of April 2 to 3, the prosecutor had evoked "a logic of control of the territories, including that of the city of the Paternelle, and a logic of vendetta" between rival gangs reigning over drug trafficking.

It was in La Paternelle, a city in the northern districts of the city, that a 17-year-old boy, known for "dealer", was lynched to death in mid-February. Again, at the end of March, the body of a 20-year-old man, riddled with bullets, had been found, abandoned on a vacant lot, a priori several days after being fatally hit.

Since the beginning of the year, fifteen people have now lost their lives in Marseille, mostly against a background of drug trafficking, fourteen shot dead and this teenager beaten to death.

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