October 6, 2002	Sunday	Rajab 28, 1423

LILLE (France), Oct 5: Two teenagers of North African origin were killed and three other youths wounded here on Friday.

Shouting “Watch out! I’ll kill you all!”, a masked gunman shot dead a 17-year-old boy of North African origin and wounded three youths in two apparently racist attacks in the northern port of Dunkirk on Friday evening, police said on Saturday.

In a separate attack, a 17-year-old girl of North African origin was burned alive on Friday in a Paris suburb, apparently by violent youths who haunt the bleak, low-cost housing projects there.

Raffarin denounced the attacks, saying: “This is a killing inspired by racism and intolerance. France cannot put up with this.”

Speaking during a visit to the Grand Mosque in Paris, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy observed a minute of silence with his Muslim audience — most of them also of North African Arab origin — and vowed to fight racism vigorously.—Reuters