Gilberto Hernández of Panama’s national football team was killed in the city of Colón.
Gunmen opened fire on a group of people gathered in a city building, including 26-year-old Gilberto Hernández.
The attack killed Hernández and injured seven others.
It is unclear whether the footballer, who also played for Club Atlético Independiente, was the intended target of the shooting or what motivated it.
Murders in Colón have increased in recent months as two rival gangs compete for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes.
So far this year, more than 50 people have been killed in Colón, a city of 40,000 people.
The port city, located on the north entrance to the Panama Canal, serves as a transit point for cocaine smuggled from South America to Europe via Panama.
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The incident occurred on Sunday afternoon, local time.
Two gunmen forced a taxi driver to take them to a building in the city’s Barrio Norte neighborhood, where they opened fire on the crowd.
The gunmen fled the scene, but a suspect was later apprehended in a nearby flat.
Gilberto Hernández made his Panamanian national team debut against Guatemala in March of this year.
The player’s father urged Colón’s youth to “stop the violence” and urged authorities to “start projects to save the youth from this violence.”
He also urged the killers to turn themselves in, saying, “Don’t cause any more harm.”
The football federation of Panama and Gilberto Hernández’s club both expressed their condolences to his family.
