At the last count, there have been no less than 49 settling of scores in Marseille since the start of 2023. These violent deaths linked to narcobanditism are now called “narchomicides”. No neighborhood seems spared, even if most of them still take place in the northern districts of the city.
The 49th settling of scores took place Monday, November 13. A young man died under bullets in Marseille, cited La Bricarde in the 15th arrondissement near an identified drug sales point. The year 2023 is set to break a macabre record. In 2022, 31 gunshot deaths have been recorded, already making last year the deadliest since 2010. The deaths are increasing. Operating methods are becoming tougher. And the places of violence are changing. Where did the score settling take place in 2023?
Traditionally, the settling of scores takes place in the northern districts of the city where the drug stores are located. But these violent crime scenes are also found in other less targeted neighborhoods, even in neighborhoods deemed “quiet”.
The majority of gun deaths still in the northern neighborhoods
The main known places of drug sales in Marseille are located in public housing projects and mainly in those of the northern districts, with the most flourishing in terms of trafficking, that of La Castellane.
Cité La Paternelle (14th arrondissement), four men lost their lives this year. THE February 24, a man in his forties died of a gunshot to the head. THE March 29, a 20-year-old young man was killed. And the May 31, a man in his thirties was killed, riddled with 9 millimeter bullets and Kalashnikovs. La Busserine, in the same district, also has four deaths or serious injuries in 2023. Just like Les Micocouliers, 3km away. But other cities are also affected, such as Les Rosiers or the Consolat city.
If the settling of scores primarily concerns drug traffickers, there are more and more collateral victims: like this mother in her forties, died after a shooting that occurred on Wednesday May 10 around 11 p.m., in the 14th arrondissement of Marseille, crossing Vieux-Moulin, near the city of Saint-Joseph, near a point of selling drugs. .
La Belle de Mai and the 3rd arrondissement are growing
The Félix Pyat city has also become the ground for settling scores, and the third arrondissement more generally. Eight people were injured or killed there by firearms in 2023. Like this March 23 when a 21-year-old man died after being targeted by five armed individuals in front of the Eugène-Pottier residence.
On June 12, a new shooting left five people injured, including two seriously injured, on the terrace of a bar in the Belle-de-Mai district, including two men between life and death.
New places and new victims
Neighborhoods that are more residential and not drug-trafficking have also had their share of violence, such as in Chutes-Lavie (4th) on September 28. Two men were shot dead and a third man was injured in this area popular, rather calm, “non-customary” of settling scores. One of the two shooting victims was a suspect in a 2019 assassination attempt.
Or even on the Prado in the 8th arrondissement, on the night of Tuesday August 1 to Wednesday August 2, where uA 25-year-old man was shot while at the Coco-Bongo nightclub.
More brutal and more incomprehensible, on September 10 when a young woman was shot and injured in her home by a Kalashnikov shot and died from her injuries, a collateral victim. Soucayna, 24, was hit in the head by a burst of Kalashnikov fire aimed at a traffic point in the Saint-Thys city in the 10th arrondissement of Marseille.
Three young men were shot dead in a residential area of the 11th arrondissement of Marseille on May 21, originally from the Félix Pyat city, but no longer residing there. HASaged around twenty, they died around 5 a.m. in a “reputedly quiet” area of Marseille after being followed while leaving a nightclub.
Near the city center, a stone’s throw from the Old Port, a 16-year-old young man, seriously injured during a shooting in the Joliette district of Marseille on the night of April 2 to 3, died as a result of his injuries. injuries.