Gang violence in southern French city Nîmes claims two lives in four days
An 18-year-old man was shot dead in Nîmes on Thursday in the same district, notorious for drug dealing, where a 10-year-old child was killed in the crossfire of a shootout earlier this week.
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According to police and the Nîmes public prosecutor's office, emergency services were called just before 4am and found the young man wounded in the abdomen and unconscious in a street in Pissevin, a group of tower blocks on the western outskirts of the city.
Shell casings of two different calibres – including 7.62 mm rounds – were reportedly found at the scene.
The public prosecutor's office said in a statement that the victim, who was "known to the police and judicial authorities", came from a town outside Nîmes. It added that the nearby Montpellier judicial police had been informed of his death.
It was in Pissevin – where the poverty rate is over 70 percent and drug trafficking is rife – that a 10-year-old child died on Monday evening when the driver of the car in which he was travelling was mistakenly targeted by gunmen.
💬 "Il y a un très grand nombre de cartouches" au sol
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) August 24, 2023
Le policier arrivé en premier sur les lieux de la fusillade à Nîmes, qui a causé la mort d'un enfant de 10 ans, témoigne pic.twitter.com/MFUEG2DLTN
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin held a meeting on the latest homicide and is due to visit the scene on Friday.
He has also deployed members of the elite CRS 8 unit that specialises in maintaining order in urban areas.
Despite the unit's presence, "people will extremely worried" to learn of another murder in their neighbourhood, said Raouf Azzouz, director of local community centre Les Mille Couleurs.
"It means that the traffickers are shooting on sight," he told French news agency AFP.
'Collateral victims'
According to Nîmes prosecutor Cécile Gensac, the child who was killed and his uncle who was injured while driving were "undeniably" collateral victims.
"The victim's family is not associated in any way – either in the past or at present – with any criminal offence," she said, adding that "their only misfortune was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time".
Nîmes : un enfant de 10 ans tué lors de ce qui semble être un règlement de comptes entre trafiquants. C’est un immense drame qui ne restera pas impuni. La police a déjà interpellé de nombreux trafiquants ces dernières semaines et va intensifier sa présence avec fermeté.
— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) August 22, 2023
An investigation has been underway since Wednesday under the direction of the public prosecutor's office of the specialised inter-regional court in Marseille, which handles major crime cases in the south-east of France.
On social media, Darmanin called the child's death "an immense drama that will not go unpunished".
Several towns in south-eastern France, including Marseille, Avignon and Nîmes – located in an arc between Spain and Italy – have been affected for several years by drug-related murders that have spiked in recent months, claiming many collateral victims.
Read also:
- France sends elite police unit to Marseille in bid to quell drug violence
- 3 killed, 8 injured, in drug-related violence in French port city of Marseille
(with AFP)
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