Kalashnikov bursts in the northern districts of Marseille: two dead and four seriously injured in the Cité des Iris

Another shooting in a sensitive area. ILLUSTRATION Midi Libre – François Barrère

The shootings targeted an association premises where several people were on Saturday evening. The vital prognosis of several injured people is engaged.

Two people were killed and four others injured late Saturday in a shooting in a housing project in the northern districts of Marseille, we learned on Sunday from a police source.

The shooting took place a little after 11 p.m. in the Iris housing project, in the 14th arrondissement of France's second city.

According to information from BFM Marseille Provence and the daily newspaper La Provence, the victims, all men aged between 25 and 35, were in a local association that was the target of shots from a Kalashnikov-type assault rifle.

The two fatally wounded victims died on the spot.

13 deaths by gunfire since the beginning of the year

A vehicle was found on fire a little later in the same district, although it has not been established whether it was the one used by the attackers.

When contacted, the Marseille prosecutor's office had not yet responded on Sunday morning.

The motive for the shooting is not known, but several housing projects in the northern districts of Marseille are plagued by poverty and drug trafficking. A young man had been shot dead in this same Iris estate on July 10, in a probable “narchomicide”, these homicides against a backdrop of drug trafficking.

Violence linked to rivalries over drug trafficking had caused a record number of 49 deaths in 2023. But they are significantly down in 2024. Before this shooting, there were 13 deaths in shootings of this type, including 9 in narchomicides officially confirmed by the prosecution.