Local authorities have revealed that a brutal feud between two drug gangs in Marseille on France’s Mediterranean coast has claimed the lives of dozens of people this year, with victims targeted in brazen attacks often carried out by minors.
The two gangs, “Yoda” and “DZ Mafia,” are fighting for control of the narcotics market in Paris’s renowned northern suburbs.
According to an AFP, 36 people have killed in the gang war since the beginning of the year, five more than in all of 2022.
“It’s a bloodbath,” the city’s state prosecutor Dominique Laurens said back in April.
There has been another spike in killings since then, with 12 persons killed in the last month alone.
The most recent victim was a 30-year-old guy who was killed with a Kalashnikov assault weapon in northern Marseille on Tuesday night.
“This is nothing less than a new round in the fight between Yoda and DZ Mafia,” police prefect Frederique Camilleri told reporters Wednesday.
The two gangs were behind 80 percent of the total of 68 gang-related killings or attempted killings in Marseille this year, she added.
Some of the victims and perpetrators are minors, such as the 17-year-old who was killed after being beaten to death by 30 assailants at the La Paternelle high-rise development in Marseille. The murder was broadcast live on the messaging service Snapchat.
According to Camilleri, killings associated with the drug trade used to be primarily about terrorising rivals and gaining new territory, such as the acquisition of a dealing location.
“We’re seeing a new landscape, a paradigm change,” she said.
