The southern French city of Marseille was rocked by two drug-related murders this week, including the killing of a 15-year-old boy who was “stabbed 50 times” and burned alive, prosecutors said Sunday.
Marseille, France’s second largest city but one of the poorest, suffers from drug-related violence.
The historic port city on the Mediterranean coast has in recent years seen a war for control of the highly profitable drug market between various groups, including the DZ Mafia and Yoda.
The problem came to light again this week, with Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Besson telling a news conference on Sunday that the victims and perpetrators of such violence are becoming increasingly young.
The 15-year-old was murdered on Wednesday, a case Besson described as one of “unprecedented barbarity”.
In a case related to Wednesday’s murder, 36-year-old football player Nessim Ramdane was shot dead by a 14-year-old boy on Friday.
The two latest cases mean the number of drug-related murders in Marseille has risen to 17 since the beginning of the year.
Marseille’s drug mafia is recruiting foot soldiers through advertisements on social media, and “outsourcing” street dealing to young men known as “jobbers”.
Besson said Sunday that young boys are now responding to ads not only to sell cannabis resin but also to kill “without any remorse or reflection.”
A 23-year-old prisoner hired the teen to intimidate a competitor through social networks by setting fire to his door, the prosecutor said, adding that the teen had been promised 2,000 euros.
The prisoner in Luynes prison, south of Aix-en-Provence, had described himself as a member of the DZ mafia.
shot in the head
During his mission, the teenager was spotted by members of a rival gang, who searched him and found that he was carrying a gun. To punish the minor, they repeatedly stabbed him with a knife and then set him on fire.
“She was stabbed 50 times and taken to the Fonscolombes housing estate, where, according to the results of the autopsy, she was burned alive,” Besson said. His friend, also aged 15, managed to escape, Besson said.
The same prisoner again turned to social media and recruited a 14-year-old minor to carry out a revenge attack and kill a black gang member and promised him 50,000 Euros.
The 14-year-old, for his part, hired Ramsden, a soccer player who also worked as a driver, to support his family, the prosecutor said.
The minor, accompanied by a friend, asked the driver “to drop them off and wait for them, but apparently he did not comply,” Besson said.
The teen then “shot him in the back of the head,” he said.
The minor was taken into custody and admitted to shooting the driver, but insisted that the shot was “accidentally fired”.
In September, public prosecutor Franck Rastoul of the Aix-en-Provence appeals court warned about the crisis of drug-related violence.
“It is imperative that we fully understand the harms of drug trafficking, which undermines the foundation of our society,” he said.
Rastoul said the young people were “intoxicated with easy drug money” to such an extent that they were showing “complete disregard for human life”.
Drug-related violence caused a record number of 49 deaths in Marseille last year.
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