International footballer shot dead aged 26 with seven others injured after gunmen open fire in horror attack

The international soccer player was shot dead in his home country of Panama.

The gunmen opened fire on a group of people including Gilberto Hernandez, 26,

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Gilberto Hernandez was killed in a port where drug gangs are fighting Credit: AFP

The defending Panamanian champion Club Atletico Independiente died and seven others were injured during the attack in the violent port of Colon.

Hernandez is the second Panama player killed in the city in the last six years.

The number of murders in the area is rising as two gangs battle for control of drug smuggling routes.

It is not yet known whether and why Hernandez was specifically targeted.

Two gunmen forced a taxi driver to take them to a building in the Barrio Norte neighborhood of Colon on Sunday afternoon local time.

They then fired at a group gathered nearby.

The two armed men fled, but the suspect was arrested in an apartment near the horrific scene.

The Panamanian Football Federation’s Manuel Arias described Hernandez on X as a professional player who unfortunately died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

PLACE OF COLON IN THE NAROKE WARS

The city is 50 miles north of Panama City (pictured above), where ships enter or leave the Caribbean Sea through the Panama Canal.

The Panamanian province of Colon, with a population of 300,000, recorded 102 murders last year.

That’s nine less than a year ago, according to government data.

Authorities blame much of the violence on rivalries between drug-trafficking gangs.

Our photo shows a cargo ship docked at the Panama Port Company in Panama City.

Arias called it an example of violence that “shakes our society” and needs to be tackled.

Hernandez’s father asked the killers to surrender and pleaded, “Don’t cause more harm.”

He also called on the city’s youth to “stop the violence.”

But he also asked the authorities to do more to help young people, telling them to “launch projects to save young people from this violence”.

Hernandez’s death comes six years after the fatal shooting in Colon province of midfielder Amilcar Henriquez.

He was part of the Panama team that qualified for the 2018 World Cup for the first time in history.

Colon has been hit by violence in recent months, largely fueled by its importance to the cocaine trade.

More than 50 people have been killed this year in a city of only 40,000 inhabitants.

Colon is attractive to drug smugglers because it is located along the Caribbean Sea and near the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal.

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Source: newstars.edu.vn

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