French police outside the Gare du Nord station after French police killed a person who attacked them with a knife inside the train station in Paris, France, February 14, 2022. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
A 24-year-old woman died after a stray gunshot intended at a drug-dealing hotspot struck her in the head in her Marseille apartment.
According to authorities, the round was shot at random and pierced a window panel in the woman’s bedroom.
Marseille has been plagued by growing drug gang violence, which has killed at least 40 people this year.
The woman is at least the third innocent bystander killed in such strikes.
On Sunday night, a barrage of Kalashnikov bullets blasted the third floor flat she shared with her mother in the Saint-Thys district, leaving her brain dead.
“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 have been more than 90 murders or attempted murders linked to drug trafficking in France’s second city this year, according to the Marseille prosecutor’s office – 43 people have died and 109 more have been wounded.
