Boy, 15, ‘stabbed 50 times and burned alive in drug-related attack’

A 15-year-old boy was burned alive after being ‘stabbed 50 times’ in the French city of Marseille this week, prosecutors have said.

The teenager, whose name has not been released yet by police, was killed on Wednesday.

Although the motive is not yet fully-known, the incident is believed to be a case of drug-related violence.

Speaking to reporters, Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone described the case as one of ‘unprecedented savagery.’

Bessone said that victims and perpetrators of such violence in France’s second-largest city were getting increasingly younger.

Marseille is notorious for its high crime rate, drug trafficking and gang activity, and in recent years the city has been in the grip of a turf war between various clans including DZ Mafia.

The teenage victim had been hired by a 23-year-old prisoner to intimidate a competitor by setting fire to his door, the prosecutor said, adding he had been promised 2,000 euros.

The teenager had however been spotted by members of a rival gang who repeatedly stabbed him then set him on fire, he added.

A 14-year-old minor was then hired by the same prisoner to carry out a revenge attack and kill a member of the Blacks gang, promising to pay him 50,000 euros.

The 14-year-old hired a 36-year-old driver who angered the minor and ended up being killed.

Last week saw two people killed and four others injured during a shooting in a housing project in the Marseille suburbs, according to local sources.

French broadcaster BFM and the daily newspaper La Provence said the victims, all men aged around 25 to 35, were in a building that was the target of shots fired from a Kalashnikov-type assault rifle.

The two fatally wounded victims died on the spot.

A young man was also shot dead in the same housing project on July 10, in what has been labelled a probable ‘narco-homicide’.

Violence linked to rivalries over drug trafficking caused a record number of 49 deaths in 2023.

The two latest cases mean that the number of drug-related killings in Marseille has risen to 17 since the start of the year, including nine narco-homicides.

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