Marseille (AFP) - The southern French city of Marseille was shaken this week by two apparently drug-related killings, including the murder of a 15-year-old boy who was “stabbed 50 times” and burned alive, prosecutors said on Sunday.

Marseille, France’s second-largest city but also one of its poorest, is plagued by drug-related violence.

The historic port city on the Mediterranean coast has in recent years witnessed a turf war for control of the highly profitable drug market between various gangs including DZ Mafia and Yoda.

The problem was once again thrust into the public eye Sunday, as Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone told reporters that the victims and perpetrators of such violence were getting increasingly younger.

The 15-year-old was murdered on Wednesday in a case Bessone described as one of “unprecedented savagery”.

On Friday, a 36-year-old football player, Nessim Ramdane, was shot and killed “in cold blood” by a 14-year-old in a case linked to Wednesday’s murder.

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

Marseille’s drug lords have been recruiting foot soldiers with ads on social media, “outsourcing” street dealing to youngsters known as “jobbeurs”.

Bessone said on Sunday that now young boys were responding to ads not only to sell cannabis resin but also to kill “without any remorse or reflection”.

The teenager had been hired via social networks by a 23-year-old prisoner to intimidate a competitor by setting fire to his door, the prosecutor said, adding the youth had been promised 2,000 euros.

The detainee of the Luynes prison south of Aix-en-Provence had described himself as a member of DZ Mafia.

- Shot in the head -

During his mission, the teenager was spotted by members of a rival gang who searched him and discovered that he was carrying a gun. To punish the minor, they repeatedly stabbed him then set him on fire.

“He was stabbed 50 times and taken to the Fonscolombes housing estate, where, according to the results of the autopsy, he was burned alive,” said Bessone. His friend, also aged 15, managed to escape, Bessone added.

The same prisoner then again turned to social media, recruiting a 14-year-old minor to carry out a revenge attack and kill a member of the Blacks gang, promising to pay him 50,000 euros.

This 14-year-old hired Ramdane, a football player who also worked as a private-hire driver to support his family, the prosecutor said.

The minor, accompanied by a friend, asked the driver “to drop them off and wait for them”, but he apparently “didn’t comply”, Bessone said.

The teenager then “shot him in the back of the head”, he added.

It was the prisoner who had hired the teenager who phoned the police to turn him in.

The minor was taken into custody and admitted shooting the driver, but insisted that the shot had “gone off accidentally”. He has been placed in detention in a section of a regional prison for minors.

In September, Franck Rastoul, public prosecutor at the Aix-en-Provence court of appeal, warned of the scourge of drug-related violence.

“It is imperative that we fully understand the ravages of drug trafficking, which undermines the very foundations of our society,” he said.

Rastoul said young people were “intoxicated by easy drug money” to the point of “total disregard for human life”.

Drug-related violence caused a record number of 49 deaths in Marseille last year.