Ten-year old dies in France, likely caught in crossfire between drug traffickers - minister

A child was killed in a street shooting in southern France on Monday night, the nation's interior minister said Tuesday.

"Nimes: A 10-year-old was killed in what seems like a settling of scores between dealers," Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Darmanin deplored this "huge tragedy" which, he vowed, will not be left unpunished.

"Police arrested many dealers over the recent weeks and will firmly intensify its presence," the interior minister ensured.

He ordered to deploy the police unit CRS 8, specialized in urban violence intervention, according to local media reports.

A suspect started shooting late on Monday night before running away with a vehicle in the Pissevin neighborhood of the Nimes town, daily Le Figaro said.

This area is a drug-dealing spot well-known to authorities, it added.

A man was in his vehicle in front of his house, with his two nephews with him, when he received bullets in the shooting.

He rushed to the Nimes University Hospital, and his nephew who got shot in the back, died at the hospital upon their arrival.

Former Nimes prosecutor Eric Maurel reportedly had said that 15 cases of score-settling shootings killed eight people in 2020 and three others in 2021.

"Those murders are directly linked to narco-trafficking and are settlings of scores, either of disputes of territory or trade disputes," he had said.