Stray Bullet Kills French Woman In Marseille

A 24-year-old woman has died after a stray bullet aimed at a drug-dealing hotspot hit her in the head in her flat in the French city of Marseille.

According to Prosecutors the bullet was fired at random and pierced a window panel in the woman’s bedroom.

Marseille has been rocked by escalating violence between drug gangs, leaving at least 40 people dead this year.

BBC reported that the woman is at least the third innocent member of the public killed in such attacks.

She was initially left brain-dead after a burst of Kalashnikov gunfire hit the third-floor flat she lived in with her mother in the Saint-Thys neighborhood on Sunday night.

“She was admitted to hospital with a serious wound to the head and in danger for her life. She died in the early hours of Tuesday,” said Marseille prosecutor Dominique Laurens.

The shooting took place in an area close to a pharmacy known to police as a drug-selling point, the prosecutor added in a statement.

Police found 23 Kalashnikov bullet casings at the scene and Ms Laurens said, after an initial burst of gunfire, the woman was hit by a second round fired at random in the air.

Three other flats in the building were also hit by bullets, but none of those residents were injured, according to the prosecutor.

“There is unbridled use of weapons of war to try to conquer new territory” between drug gangs said Frédérique Camilleri, police chief for the Bouches-du-Rhône department that Marseille is a part of.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin described the incident as an “absolute tragedy” and promised to equip the police sufficiently.

BBC