Two teenagers have been shot after a massive African gang brawl near a public housing complex in Collingwood, inner Melbourne, involving 50 violent thugs.
Victoria Police are looking into gang links after the double shooting near Vere Street just before 1am on Friday that left a male, 17, fighting for life from his bullet wounds and a 15-year-old male in hospital with serious injuries.
The younger teenager took himself to the Royal Children’s Hospital with a gunshot wound the chest, while the 17-year-old was shot in the back and found bleeding in a nearby home before being rushed to hospital.
Locals told the Herald Sun the brawl at the nearby Hoddle St housing commission complex involved carloads of machete-wielding thugs who drove cars at each other and fought in the street just before the shooting.
Detective Superintendent Jason Kelly said it was too early to tell the shooting was a revenge attack two recent alleged killings of African gang members in Melbourne – Pal Bidong in North Melbourne and Lino Atem in Wyndham Vale, but said police were treated it as a targeted attack.
“When we have children being shot, allegedly by other children, Victoria Police will leave no stone unturned,” he said.
Friends of the victims remained at the scene on Friday morning where police arrested two men, including an African who was allegedly armed with knives.
He was later released and is expected to be charged at a later date. Police said his arrest was not linked to the shooting.
A stolen car believed to be linked to the shooting was found dumped in Balwyn North, Nine News reported.
Police are still trying to track down the 50 youths involved in the brawl, all believed to be in their teens or early 20s, and are still trying to find 12 machete-wielding Africans who savagely stabbed Sudanese refugee to death earlier this month.
Atem’s killing is the latest in a series of African gang-related alleged murders to rock Melbourne, despite the left-wing Labor government and corporate media claiming that African gangs don’t exist.
In December two African men were charged over the alleged murder of a Burmese teenager in a gang attack, in November gangs vowed to take revenge after a Sudanese rapper was shot dead, and in July four African gang members were sentenced over the brutal murder of White Australian boy Declan Cutler who died of 86 stab wounds.
Header image: Left, a man is arrested at the scene for allegedly carrying knives. Right, a friend of the victims at the scene (Nine News).
