Marseille woman hit by stray bullet in turf war dies

A 24-year-old woman has died after being hit by a stray bullet in an attack on a drug-dealing hotspot in the French Mediterranean city of Marseille, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Published: 11 September 2023 17:20 CEST
Updated: 12 September 2023 10:20 CEST

Marseille woman hit by stray bullet in turf war dies

Police officers steer a car in France in 2020. (Photo by Loic VENANCE / AFP)

The woman was hit late on Sunday evening when a burst of fire from a Kalashnikov rifle tore through her apartment building.

Around 40 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Marseille this year — a situation described as a “bloodbath” by city authorities.

“This is a total tragedy,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told broadcaster France Bleu during a visit to the port city, which has a history of drug-related violence.

Sunday’s shooting raises new concerns about the impact of drug crime on Marseille, which is set to host fixtures for the Rugby World Cup and a visit from Pope Francis in the coming weeks.

The dead woman was hit by a bullet that pierced the plywood surround of her third-floor window, the city’s chief prosecutor, Dominique Laurens, said.

“She was admitted to hospital with a serous wound to the head and in danger for her life. She died in the early hours of Tuesday,” she added.

Two other women, aged 79 and 86, and a 71-year-old man escaped unharmed after their apartments were also struck by bullets.

All had been inadvertently caught up in an attack on a drug-dealing hotspot in the Saint-Thys district.

The area is classed as a priority security zone but is not in Marseille’s most deprived northern neighbourhoods.

Investigators found 23 Kalashnikov cartridge casings on the scene.

On Monday, a 55-year-old man was killed in a shooting in northern Marseille, police sources told AFP.

Two more people uninvolved in the drug trade were killed earlier this year, a 43-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.