A 7-year-old girl was killed and her 6-year-old sister seriously injured in a Sunday afternoon shooting on the Northwest Side in the Belmont Central neighborhood, police said.

       The girls were in a parked car in the 6200 block of West Grand Avenue at about 2:50 p.m. when they were shot, according to Chicago police.

       The 6-year-old-girl suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and right armpit, and was taken to Loyola University Medical Center, where she was stabilized, police said. The 7-year-old was shot in the chest and torso, and was also taken to Loyola, where she was pronounced dead.

       “At this time I’d like to offer my sincere condolences to the family of these two precious young girls, one of which lost her life,” Chicago police Chief of Patrol Brian McDermott said Sunday evening in a news briefing. The 6-year-old was “fighting for her life,” he said.

       “To say that I am sad and outraged would be an understatement,” McDermott said, pleading for community support in helping police solve the crime. “I can only hope that every resident in the city is as angry, saddened and outraged as I am at this time.”

       The shooting happened as the girls’ mother was putting the two children in the back seat of a car, McDermott said, and it’s not believed that they or their mother were targeted. Police responded to a ShotSpotter alert, McDermott said, and attempted first aid on the wounded girls while awaiting arrival of paramedics.

       The block is around a “gang conflict area,” McDermott said. He said police were trying to determine whether there were multiple shooters and whether they were on foot or in a vehicle when the gunshots rang out.

       Anyone with information about the shooting should call Area 5 detectives at 312-746-8282 or send an anonymous tip to cpdtip.com.

       The young girls are the latest victims of weekend gun violence that left 45 others shot, four fatally, through Sunday afternoon.

       Check back for updates.

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