Child caught in crosshairs of violent drug war is shot dead in Nimes as special police units remain on the ground for rest of the year
“The day that a child is killed, I think will be the day that things change,” a French mother told news network, TV TF1, from her hometown of Pissevin in Nîmes in March 2021.
Two years later, her worst fear came to pass when a child was caught in the crosshairs of a violent drug war and shot dead in the south of France last week.
Last week, within the space of four days, drug-related shootouts killed a 10-year-old boy called Fayed, and an 18-year-old who was known to Nîmes police.
In nearby Marseille, a 17-year-old minor was shot dead over the weekend, raising the city’s drug-related death toll to 38 since the beginning of the year. A 14-year-old boy was also struck by a bullet in the city earlier that week.