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La Jornada Newspaper
Monday, October 7, 2024, p. 30

Marseilles. A 15-year-old boy was stabbed 50 times and burned alive this week in the southeastern French city of Marseille in a case of unprecedented savagery related to drug sales.

Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone reported yesterday that the teenager was murdered on Wednesday.

Marseille, France’s second largest city but also one of its poorest, is plagued by drug-related violence.

Bessone stated that the victims and perpetrators of these types of cases are increasingly younger.

For a few years now, this Mediterranean city has been suffering a territorial war between several clans for control of the drug market.

The young man had been hired, through social networks, by a 23-year-old inmate to intimidate a competitor by setting fire to the door of his apartment, the prosecutor indicated, for which he had been promised 2 thousand euros.

However, the teenager was discovered by members of a rival gang, who stabbed him dozens of times before setting him on fire while he was still alive.

The aforementioned prisoner then recruited, also through social networks, another 14-year-old boy to kill, in revenge, a member of the rival gang, in exchange for 50 thousand dollars.

When he was on his way to carry out his disastrous mission, the teenager allegedly asked the driver of the car he was in to wait for him, but when he refused, the minor shot him in the head.

The victim, a 36-year-old father and employee of a private transportation service, was not related to drug trafficking, the prosecutor’s office said. He is the first collateral victim of the year, Bessone said.

There is a total loss of references that makes young people respond to ads to murder without any remorselamented the official, who emphasized the role that social networks play.

With these last two cases, the number of drug-related murders in Marseille rises to 17 since the beginning of the year.

In 2023, a total of 49 people died in drug-related acts in the city.

Another surprising aspect of this case is that it was the inmate who commissioned the murder who called the police to report the young man, who had not fulfilled his mission, which allowed his arrest.

In police custody, the minor, who had been in foster care since he was nine years old, as his parents are in jail on drug charges, admitted to shooting the driver, but claims it was an accidental shot.