An Algerian policeman shot a teenage boy who later died when a gang tried to stop officers during the latest in a string of drug busts, police said Tuesday. Officers searching a house in the Baraki suburb of the capital Algiers were “surprised” by young men trying to “prevent the operation,” police said in a statement. “An officer fired a warning shot which hit a minor,” it said, adding that the boy was taken to hospital but later died. He was aged around 16, according to an autopsy.
An officer has also been taken into custody and an investigation opened, with his gun “taken for ballistic analysis”, police said. Officers arrested two and seized around a thousand “hallucinogenic pills”, amid what officials say is a surge in drugs in the North African nation.
Anti-drug agency chief Ghania Mokdache said recently that cocaine use had risen more than 200 percent in the first 10 months of 2022 compared to the year previously, while officers had seized more than 60 tonnes of cannabis in the same period.
