AN international footballer has been shot dead in his home country Panama.
Gunmen fired on a group of people including Gilberto Hernandez, 26,
The defender for Panamanian champions Club Atletico Independiente died and seven others were hurt during the attack in the violent seaport of Colon.
Hernandez is the second Panama player killed in the city over the past six years.
Murders in the area have been rising as two gangs battle for control of drug-smuggling routes.
It is not yet known if or why Hernandez was specifically targeted.
A taxi driver was forced by two gunmen to take them to a building in Colon’s Barrio Norte neighbourhood on Sunday afternoon local time.
They then fired on a group assembled nearby.
The two armed men fled but a suspect was arrested in a flat close to the horrific scene.
Panamanian Soccer Federation Manuel Arias described Hernandez on X as a professional player who sadly died for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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COLON’S PLACE IN DRUG WARS
The city is 50 miles north of Panama City (pictured above), where ships enter or exit the Caribbean Sea through the Panama Canal.
Panama’s Colon province, with a population of 300,000, recorded 102 murders last year.
That’s nine fewer than the year before, according to government data.
Authorities blame much of the violence on rivalry between gangs trafficking drugs.
Our photo shows a cargo ship docking at the Panama Port Company in Panama City.
Arias called it an example of the violence that “shakes our society” and which needs to be tackled.
Hernandez’s father asked the killers to hand themselves in and pleaded: “Don’t cause more harm.”
He also urged the city’s youngsters to “stop the violence”.
But he also asked authorities to do more to help young people, telling them to “launch projects to save the youth from this violence”.
Hernandez’s death comes six years after the fatal shooting in the Colon province of midfielder Amilcar Henriquez.
He was part of the Panama team that qualified for the 2018 World Cup for the first time ever.
Colon has been beset by violence in recent months, largely fuelled by its importance to the cocaine trade.
More than 50 people have been killed this year in a city of just 40,000 inhabitants.
Colon is attractive for drug smugglers as it is next to the Caribbean Sea and close to the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
