Two people were killed on the night of Wednesday 17 to Thursday 18 September during a gendarmerie operation in Saint-Louis, south of Noumea, where protests against the thawing of the electoral body remain strong. These two new deaths bring to 13 the human toll of the riots that have been shaking the archipelago since mid-May.
2 min
With our correspondent in Noumea, Charlotte Mannevy
Aged 24 and 31, the two people killed during the night from Wednesday to Thursday in a police operation knew they were being sought and had been hiding for several weeks in the Saint-Louis tribe, south of Noumea. They are suspected of being among the perpetrators of the 330 shootings by the police and gendarmerie in the area over the past four months, along with around ten other individuals.
” These are young people ready to kill a policeman or die. “, explains a high-ranking officer who assures that several mediations had taken place in recent weeks with a view to obtaining their surrender.
13 dead since May
These two new deaths bring the number of deaths in New Caledonia since the start of the protest movement against the thawing of the electoral body last May. Among them, three were recorded in the space of just two months in Saint-Louis during various operations by the police. On July 10, a man presented as one of the leaders of the violence in the area, Roch-Victorin Wamytan, known as “Banane”, was killed by a retaliatory shot.
His death had then led to a significant increase in tension on the ground since ten days later, the church of the Saint-Louis mission, the cradle of Catholicism in New Caledonia, had been set on fire. Since these events, traffic has been cut off on the road that passes in front of the Saint-Louis tribe and you have to cross a gendarmerie checkpoint on foot to get there.
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