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One dead: Masked men shoot at wedding reception in Thionville, France

Theo

One person was killed and five others injured when masked gunmen opened fire at a Turkish wedding in northeastern France over the weekend.

Three armed men entered the reception hall in Thionville on Saturday evening and began shooting at the approximately 100 guests.

The shooting was linked to a conflict between drug traffickers in the Moselle region, according to the French newspaper The Figaro was reported citing local police sources.

The name of the victim, reportedly a man in his 30s, was not disclosed.

Three of the injured, aged between 25 and 50, were in critical condition at the nearby Bel-Air Hospital. Among them was a pregnant woman.

The other two suffered minor injuries, mainly from flying glass fragments, the local prosecutor’s office said.

“At quarter past one in the morning, a group of people went outside to smoke in front of the hall when three heavily armed men appeared and opened fire in their direction,” a police source was quoted as saying by AFP.

The attackers fired several shots at the guests using automatic weapons and shotguns. “The target was not the wedding itself, but the people who were at the wedding,” the source said.

“All participants come from the Metz urban area and none from Thionville,” said Pierre Cuny, the mayor of Thionville, in a post on Facebook.

Mr Cuny said he would not make any further comments “given the electoral context” and offered “moral support to the victims and newlyweds”.

In 2023, five people were injured in a shootout between two rival gangs in the neighboring town of Villerupt.

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