One more person was killed yesterday and two were injured in New Caledonia as security personnel tried to restore order after a fifth night of riots and looting that has now claimed six lives, while Australians stranded in the Pacific territory of France said they were rationing food as they wait for a way out.
The death occurred in the archipelago’s northern Kaala-Gomen area, General Nicolas Mattheos said.
An informed source said the dead man and one of the injured were a father and son trying to cross a barricade erected by rioters.
Photo: AFP
Hundreds of heavily armed French soldiers and police yesterday patrolled the capital, Noumea, where streets were filled with debris.
“We’re far from getting back to calm,” Noumea Mayor Sonia Lagarde told news channel BFM TV.
“You could describe the last two nights as calmer, but the days are all alike, each with their share of fires,” she added.
Reporters in the city’s Magenta district saw vehicles and buildings burned, with a phalanx of riot police on the scene trying to reassert government control.
Overnight, residents reported hearing gunfire, the drone of helicopters and “massive explosions” — what seemed to be gas canisters blowing up inside a building that was set alight.
For days Helene, 42, has been watching over makeshift barricades with neighbors, taking two-to-three-hour shifts as they wait for hundreds of French security forces being flown 17,000km to impose order.
“At night we hear shooting, and things going off,” she said. “Helicopters and military planes landing — which is sweet music to our ears.”
For almost a week, the usually unhurried seaside city has been convulsed.
Two gendarmes have been killed: one shot in the head and a second shot in friendly fire, officials said.
Three people — all indigenous Kanaks — have also been killed: a 17-year-old and two men aged 20 and 36.
The unrest has been blamed on economic malaise, social tensions and a political fight between mostly indigenous pro-independence activists and Paris authorities.
French officials have accused a separatist group known as CCAT of being behind the riots.
Meanwhile, Joanne Elias, a traveler from Sydney yesterday said she, her husband and four children had been told to fill a bathtub in case water ran out as food stocks dwindled.
“The kids are definitely hungry because we don’t really have much option of what we can feed them,” Elias said by telephone from a resort, where her family has been holed up since the unrest in the French-ruled territory broke out this week.
“We don’t know how long we’re going to be here for,” she said, adding that her family was among about 30 Australians stuck at the Chateau Royal.
Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Penny Wong (黃英賢) said that Canberra was “working with authorities in France and New Caledonia, and like-minded partners including New Zealand, to assess options for Australians to safely depart.”
The New Caledonia government on Friday said the island had stocks of food for two months and the problem was distribution.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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