In Dumbéa, north of Nouméa, capital of New Caledonia, the municipal police premises burned as well as a garage. Four armored vehicles, including one of the latest generation – a Centaur – intervened, noted an AFP journalist.
The clashes took place near a car garage where cars were on fire. Four hooded activists standing behind makeshift barricades threw projectiles towards the police, insulting them, observed an AFP journalist.
“Free our prisoners!”
Near a large, completely destroyed sports equipment store located in the surrounding area, separatists camped in front of the police early Monday afternoon, one of them shouting “Free our prisoners!”
Clashes also pitted the police against separatists in Bourail, a town located less than 200 km north of Nouméa, which resulted in one injured person, AFP learned. The injured person was not hit by a bullet and is not a member of the police, the high commission said.
On Monday, in the Vallée-du-Tir district, a police unit dislodged rioters from a burning roadblock on a roundabout, a police officer told AFP. According to the same source, a man was agitating a Kanak flag until the intervention of the police, who cleared the dam for the second time on Monday.
The High Commission reported “several controlled fires”, particularly in Ducos and in the Magenta district, adding that “the premises and vehicles of the municipal police and private vehicles” were set on fire.
“Abuses, destruction and attempted fires were also committed in several places on Païta,” added the High Commission, stressing that “the territorial brigade of Maré was also attacked.”
Reactivation of the airlift
The road leading to the airport was blocked early Monday afternoon, due to a clearance operation by the police, according to AFP journalists.
The air bridge between Magenta aerodrome, located in the district of the same name in Nouméa, and La Tontouta international airport, which was to be completely lifted on Monday, was reactivated for passengers arriving or departing on Monday , announced the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), infrastructure manager.
On Monday morning, many schools were closed due to renewed violence and the expressway leading to the hospital was blocked on both sides, at the Apogoti Scholars Bridge.
The Association for the Prevention and Treatment of Renal Failure (ATIR) announced Monday in a press release that their “dialysis units in Greater Nouméa (Robinson, Koutio, DSM) are currently closed and unable to accommodate patients. and caregivers safe. “Our caregivers are waiting to be able to return to the dialysis units as soon as the situation allows it again, just like the ambulances transporting patients who have great difficulty moving,” warned the ATIR.
The South Pacific archipelago has been plagued by violent unrest since May 13, stemming from protests over an electoral thaw bill. The events left nine dead, including two gendarmes, and immense damage, amounting to more than a billion euros.
President Emmanuel Macron suspended in mid-June the bill which ignited the powder and crystallized the anger of the independence camp: it provided for a constitutional reform modifying the electoral criteria for the Caledonian provincial elections, which would have had the consequences, according to its opponents, to marginalize the weight of the indigenous Kanak people.
