Sinister – Since mid-July, five Catholic buildings have been set on fire in New Caledonia, atrocities that raise questions
The church at the center of the targeting? Since mid-July, five Catholic buildings have been set on fire in New Caledonia. The perpetrators of most of these acts remain unidentified, but these atrocities raise questions in an archipelago where the weight of religion remains significant.
“If we had not arrived, our church would surely have been the first to burn.” Niuliki Palenapa, a worshipper at the Church of Hope in Noumea, remembers the day he discovered a pyre made of benches and newspaper ready to be lit, in this place of worship in a working-class neighborhood among the most affected by the riots.
Since then, the place of worship has been under 24-hour surveillance. A spontaneous initiative, without consultation with the leaders of the Catholic Church, which has multiplied in many parishes, as a deacon and parishioners involved in these surveillance groups confirmed to AFP.
Fires are multiplying
In a few weeks, from the Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption church on the Isle of Pines, which was partially burned down, to the Saint-Louis church, which went up in flames, five religious buildings have been targeted by arson attacks in New Caledonia. In each case, investigations were opened and entrusted to the gendarmerie.
These fires “reach the (…) - 20minutes
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