This is the ninth death to have occurred on the archipelago’s dams. An investigation was opened in New Caledonia following the death of a 23-year-old man in a state of “respiratory distress” after going to roadblocks in Nouméa, the public prosecutor announced on Monday.
“In the evening (Sunday), around 8:30 p.m., the young man’s parents called emergency services due to their son’s state of respiratory distress, upon his return to the family home, after having gone to roadblocks at Kaméré,” said prosecutor Yves Dupas in a press release. “Given the obstructions to traffic on public roads, the SAMU team was unable to intervene,” continues the prosecutor.
An autopsy to come
A police doctor was able to go to the parents’ home and perform first aid procedures for 45 minutes before an ambulance arrived, but the young man died a few hours later at the Nouméa hospital center, according to the same source.
“In order to determine the causes of this death, the prosecution ordered a scan and an autopsy, planned shortly,” continues the prosecutor, who assures that the young man had told his parents that he had not not been “injured by the police and that he had ‘gone crazy’ with friends”.
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Nine people killed
Another death recorded on Monday, a motorist who had taken the wrong way on the expressway leading to the north of the island was killed in a head-on collision in the town of Païta, Dumbéa firefighters announced to AFP, a city of Greater Nouméa. The motorist “had to turn around on the expressway due to a roadblock built by independence activists,” said the firefighters.
Since May 13 and the start of the riots and violence following the constitutional reform project aimed at unfreezing the electoral body, nine people have been killed in the violence, including two gendarmes, according to the latest official report.
