Vittoriosa Shooting: Fourth Gun Death This Year Shakes Malta’s Soul

**Vittoriosa Mourns: Sunday Shooting Claims Life as Malta’s Silent Gun Crisis Deepens**

The narrow, honey-coloured alleys of Vittoriosa—usually echoing with the clack of church bells and the hiss of espresso machines—fell unnaturally silent yesterday after hospital officials confirmed that the 34-year-old man gunned down on Triq il-Għażżienin late Sunday night has succumbed to his injuries. The victim, identified by neighbours as Karl “Kaju” Pace, a father of two who grew up three streets away from the scene, becomes the fourth Maltese life lost to firearms violence since January, a statistic that has shattered the island’s cherished self-image as a Mediterranean haven where doors stay unlocked and feuds end with a pastizz, not a bullet.

Emergency services were called at 23:42 after residents mistook the three rapid shots for fireworks leftover from last week’s village festa. Instead, they found Pace slumped between two centuries-old limestone blocks, blood pooling on the same cobbles where knights once paraded. A surgeon at Mater Dei Hospital told Hot Malta that the victim arrived without vitals, having sustained wounds to the chest and abdomen from what police sources describe as a 9-mm semi-automatic pistol—hardware increasingly smuggled through Malta’s freeport inside containerised scrap metal.

By dawn, the cordon had lifted, but the scent of gunpowder seemed to cling to the baroque facades. Elderly men who usually debate fishing yields over tin tables at the Band Club stared at their coffees. “We’ve become Little Chicago,” whispered 78-year-old Ġużeppi, who served in the Kings Own Malta Regiment. “In my day, the worst crime was someone stealing a rabbit snare.”

Culturally, Vittoriosa—Birgu to locals—is no stranger to siege. The city survived the Great Turkish Bombardment of 1565, its bastions scarred but unbroken. Yet residents say this new siege feels different: invisible, internal, fuelled by TikTok feuds and cocaine routes that slip through yacht marinas. Parish priest Fr. Rene’ Scicluna cancelled Monday’s planned procession of St. Dominic’s relics, replacing it with a candle-lit vigil that drew 600 people outside the Inquisitor’s Palace. “We are not just lighting candles,” he told the crowd. “We are lighting consciences.”

The killing has reopened debate about Malta’s gun laws. While legal ownership requires psychological clearance and a safe bolted to bedrock, illegal conversion kits for blank-firing pistols—sold online for €350—can be 3-D-printed in any garage. Opposition MP Joe Ellis called for a national gun-amnesty window, citing the UK’s 1996 Dunblane turnaround; government whip Glenn Bedingfield countered that “legislation alone cannot repair social fibre torn by fast money and faster tempers.” Both, however, agreed to an urgent parliamentary briefing scheduled for Thursday.

Community impact is already measurable. The Vittoriosa yacht marina reported six cancelled long-term berths this morning, with British retirees citing “security concerns”. Meanwhile, the city’s popular ghost-tour operator, Dark Malta, has seen a 40 % spike in bookings—macabre tourism that disgusts locals. “My son’s classroom WhatsApp group is full of parents arranging walking chaperones,” says Miriam Cachia, whose eight-year-old attends the nearby primary school. “We’re terrified the next bullet won’t discriminate.”

Police have arrested two men, aged 29 and 31, from Fgura and Żabbar respectively. Both have prior drug-related convictions; investigators are probing whether Pace’s death stems from a debt over a €2,500 cocaine stash. Magistrate Gabriella Vella has opened a homicide inquiry and issued a gag order on court proceedings, but rumours ripple faster than the Grand Harbour tide.

As the sun set yesterday, someone spray-painted “R.I.P. Kaju – Trid tħallina ngħixu” (“Let us live”) on a plywood board nailed to the crime-scene wall. By midnight, candles flickered beneath it, guarded by teenagers who should have been studying for O-levels. Their silence spoke louder than any headline: Malta’s smallest historic city is now the latest casualty of an island-wide identity crisis, where medieval streets meet 21st-century gunfire, and even the Knights’ stone ramparts can’t keep out the fear.