Panama football player shot dead

PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP):

A Panama's national football player was killed when gunmen opened fire on a group of people gathered in the country's violent port city of Colon. Authorities yesterday announced the arrest of one suspect.

Defender Gilberto Hernandez, 26, was the second Panama player killed in Colon in the past six years.

Hernandez was with friends on Sunday along a street in central Colon when attackers in a taxi opened fire, according to police. Seven other people were wounded in the attack.

Colon sits 50 miles (80 kilometres) north of Panama City, where ships enter or exit the Caribbean Sea through the Panama Canal.

Panama's Colon province, with a population of about 300,000, recorded 102 homicides last year, nine fewer than the year before, according to government data. Authorities blame much of the violence on drug trafficking competition.

In 2017, midfielder Amilcar Henriquez was shot to death in Colon province. He was a national player. Panama qualified for the World Cup for the first time in their history in 2018.

Hernandez played for Independent Athletic Club, the reigning champion of Panama's professional football league.

On the national team, Hernandez played a friendly match against world champions Argentina in March. Panama lost the game 2-0 in Buenos Aires. Afterwards, Hernandez and other teammates took photos with Argentine star Lionel Messi.

Manuel Arias, president of the Panamanian Football Federation, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that Hernandez was "a professional player who today lost his life, sadly for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

He added that it was an example of "the violence that shakes our society and which we must combat".