A 10 year old boy passed away on the night from Monday to Tuesday in the French city of Nîmes, located in thesoutheast of the country, and an adult was seriously injured after being shot as collateral victims, in what, according to the first elements of the investigation, was a settling of scores between gangs.

The first investigations into the event point to a reckoning related to drug trafficking. “There is no doubt that this incident is related to drug trafficking,” Nimes prosecutor Cécile Gensac told the media very close to the scene of the attack.

The events occurred after 11:00 p.m. (21:00 GMT) in the Pissevin neighborhood, known for being a common scenario for drug trafficking where there have already been several settling of scores between gangs. A 27-year-old resident of the neighborhood, a military man, was returning to his house at the wheel of his car with two nephews with whom he had dined at a restaurant and, when he was going to park the vehicle, they were shot.

The man, hit in the back, started quickly and went to the hospital where he could be treated, although the doctors could no longer do anything to save the life of the 10-year-old boy. The other nephew escaped unscathed. Gensac insisted that the family has not been and is not related to any criminal proceedings and spoke of “collateral victims” that they met “in the wrong place at the wrong time”. The family, he added, “lives a tragedy of the most absolute.”

As for the perpetrators of the attack, the prosecutor acknowledged that she could not say how many there were, only that there were “several”. Some witnesses cited by the police indicate that there were at least four who fled in a car that was later found burnt out in a nearby neighborhood. In addition, a video that has circulated on social networks and information sites allows us to see a man who shoots with an automatic rifle.

An investigation has been opened for murder in an organized gang and various other crimes. The prosecutor affirmed that there is a fight for the territory between gangs that are dedicated to drug trafficking, when asked about another 14-year-old teenager who was shot on the night of Sunday to Monday in another neighborhood of Nimes. In a first reaction, the French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, stated on the social network X (formerly Twitter) that this event “It seems to be a settling of scores between traffickers”