In Marseille, a port city in France, three men were killed by an assault rifle attack on Sunday. Police claimed the area has recently experienced an increase in drug-related gang murders.
The three were among a group of five men in their 20s who, they claimed, were ambushed in their car by unidentified assailants brandishing Kalashnikov guns shortly after 5:00 am (0300 GMT).
Both the shooters and the two attack survivors fled the scene after the incident, which happened in a residential area of Marseille, France’s second-largest city.
Although they did not immediately confirm it, police discovered a smoldering automobile close by.
However, the burned-out car would be consistent with earlier drug-related murders in Marseille, where the killers frequently set their cars on fire to erase any evidence.
According to a person familiar with the inquiry, there were early cues that the guys who were attacked were in a council estate with a high prevalence of drug trafficking and were known to police.
Regional prefect Frederique Camilleri told reporters at the scene that “the entire police force has been mobilised to find the perpetrators of these despicable crimes and to dismantle the networks of the traffickers behind this violence”.
This weekend alone, police had arrested five people for possession of firearms linked to the drugs trade, and seized three Kalashnikov assault rifles, a submachine gun and a handgun, she said.
The latest attack brings the number of drug-related homicides in Marseille since the start of the year to 21, according to an AFP count.
The victims are typically young men low in the hierarchy of drug gangs, and targeted by killers working for rival gangs.
Last month, Camilleri and the city’s top prosecutor Dominique Laurens issued a warning about the “vendetta”-like nature of the rivalry between competing organizations for control of the most profitable drug-dealing locations in the city.
That declaration followed a violent night in early April in which three individuals were shot to death, including a 16-year-old, and eight others were wounded.
The “blood bath” in Marseille was becoming worse, according to Laurens at the time, and he forecast that it would “continue in the coming months.”
Special police forces were deployed at key drug flashpoints in the city following that killing spree.
Marseille’s mayor Benoit Payan said this month that “this war has been going on for too long” and called on the French government to act “in a firm and strong way” to stop the violence.
“The killers don’t even bother to hide anymore,” Payan said.