A 15-year-old boy has been ‘stabbed 50 times’ and burned alive in a fierce turf war over drugs. The attack in the southern French city of Marseille is thought to be linked to an earlier murder case, according to prosecutors. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said the teenager was killed on Wednesday, describing the case as an “unprecedented rescue”. Marseille, France’s second city, but also one of its poorest, has been plagued in recent years by drug-related violence described by the French media as “narco-murder”. In recent years, the city has been the scene of a turf war for control of the very lucrative drug market between several clans, including the DZ Mafia. According to the prosecutor, the murdered teenager would have been hired by a 23-year-old prisoner to intimidate a competitor by setting fire to his door and would have received a promise of 2,000 euros. The daily L’Yonne Républicaine identified the sponsor as an inmate of the Aix-Luynes detention center near Aix-en-Provence, a member of the DZ mafia. But before carrying out the attack, the armed teenager was spotted by members of a rival gang, who stabbed her several times and set her on fire, the prosecutor said. After his first plan failed following the teenager’s death, the same Luynes inmate then recruited a second minor, aged 14, to carry out a revenge attack and kill a rival gang member, promising to pay the child 50,000 euros. After receiving orders to carry out their mission, the teenager and another individual boarded a taxi to travel to the site of the revenge attack. The teenager then asked the 36-year-old driver, whose name has not been released, to wait for him. When the driver refused, the serial killer flew into a rage and shot the driver, with a 357 Magnum revolver, before fleeing, according to Le Monde newspaper. The suspects and victims of the murders have not been disclosed by the prosecutor. These two last cases bring to 17 the number of drug murders in Marseille this year. A total of 49 people were killed in drug-related violence in Marseille in 2023. Prosecutor Bessone noted that the victims and perpetrators of recent violence in the city were increasingly young.
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