One person was killed and five others sustained gunshot wounds in northeastern France when several masked gunmen opened fire at a wedding ceremony, police sources said on Sunday.
According to sources, the incident in the northeastern city of Thionville was the result of a drug trafficking dispute.
According to an AFP report, the shooting took place overnight, from Saturday to Sunday, in a reception hall with approximately 100 individuals present.
Two people were gravely injured, and one was in critical condition.
The perpetrators of the shooting, however, fled the scene.
“It was during a wedding,” a police source said.
“At a quarter past one in the morning, a group of people went outside to smoke in front of the hall, and then three heavily armed men arrived and opened fire in their direction.”
According to the informant, the intruders arrived in a 4×4 vehicle, “probably a BMW.” It was unclear where the vehicle had come from.
Thionville is located near the borders of Luxembourg and Germany. Law enforcement officials suspect that the violence was motivated by a desire to settle scores related to narcotics trafficking.
“The wedding was not targeted as such; it was people who were at the wedding,” a source told me.
On Sunday morning, a bullet-pierced glass door was seen at the scene. In the nearby village of Villerupt, five individuals were injured in May 2023 during shootings between rival gangs at a drug distribution site.
