Popular Football Player Shot Dead
Gunmen have shot dead Gilberto Hernández, a member of Panama’s national football team after they opened fire on a group of people who had gathered in a building in the city, Colón.
Apart from the death of the 26-year-old, seven others were injured in the attack, in the shooting that happened on Sunday afternoon, according to BBC.
The report has not established if Hernández, who also played for Club Atlético Independiente, was the target of the shooting or what the motive was.
There has been a spate of killings in Colón over the past months as two rival gangs fight for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes.
No fewer than 50 people have been killed in Colón, a city of 40,000 inhabitants, so far this year, the report said.
The port city, on the north entrance to the Panama Canal, is a transit point for cocaine smuggled from South America through Panama to Europe.
Two gunmen forced a taxi driver to take them to a building in the city’s Barrio Norte neighbourhood and opened fire on the group gathered there and fled the scene after the shooting.
Hernández made his debut in the Panamanian national side in March this year in a match against Guatemala.
The player’s father urged the youth of Colón “to stop the violence”, and called on the authorities to “launch projects to save the youth from this violence”.
He also asked the killers to hand themselves in, “Don’t cause more harm.”
Panama’s football federation and Hernández’s club have expressed their condolences to his family.
