Australia and New Zealand have sent government planes to New Caledonia to evacuate their nationals from the French territory, which has experienced a week of deadly riots sparked by electoral changes imposed by the French government in Paris.
Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, confirmed it had received clearance for two flights after the international airport was shut down, and the government would “continue to work on further flights”.
Hours later, a Royal Australian Air Force C-130 Hercules touched down in Nouméa, the capital. The plane can carry 124 passengers, according to the defence department. “We continue to work on further flights,” Wong wrote on X.
New Zealand, French and Australian foreign ministers held a call on Monday evening, after New Zealand and Australia said they were waiting for clearance from French authorities to send defence aircraft to evacuate tourists.
A meeting of France’s defence council later agreed arrangements to allow tourists to return home. Roughly 3,000 tourists are thought to be marooned in New Caledonia, according to AFP, including more than 300 Australians and nearly 250 New Zealanders.
New Zealand’s government also announced that it had sent a plane to begin evacuating about 50 of its citizens. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days — and bringing them home has been an urgent priority for the government,” the foreign affairs minister, Winston Peters, said. “In cooperation with France and Australia, we are working on subsequent flights in coming days.”
Maxwell Winchester, an Australian tourist who had been barricaded in a resort, told the AFP news agency: “We are ecstatic. Every night, we had to sleep with one eye open. Every noise, we were worried that they were coming in to loot us.”
New Caledonia’s international airport remained closed to commercial flights, as protesters refused to abandon roadblocks that have paralysed the Pacific archipelago for a week – even as the French government insisted a major security operation was beginning to restore calm.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, told a meeting of his defence and security council on Monday evening that there was “clear progress in re-establishing order”.
But pro-independence largely Indigenous Kanak activists vowed they would not give up, and AFP journalists said some roadblocks taken down by security forces were being rebuilt by pro-independence forces.
The latest unrest in the Pacific territory of 270,000 people erupted over French plans to impose new rules that would give tens of thousands of non-Indigenous residents voting rights.
Indigenous Kanaks make up about 40% of the population but tend to be poorer. Kanak groups say the latest voting regulations would dilute their vote.
France has sent 1,000 security forces to its overseas territory, which has been rocked by seven nights of violence that have left six dead, including two gendarmes, and hundreds injured.
Some 600 heavily armed French police and paramilitaries destroyed 76 roadblocks on the 40-mile (60km) route between Nouméa and La Tontouta international airport, officials said.
Macron warned during Monday’s meeting that the military would need to remain deployed in New Caledonia “for some time”.
Amid the continuing unrest in the capital, anti-riot blast balls, often used to release teargas or pepper spray, could be heard in one Nouméa suburb.
A pickup truck drove through one Nouméa suburb with about 10 masked and hooded men wielding machetes, AFP correspondents said.
“It feels like being in The Walking Dead,” the local post office director Thomas de Deckker told AFP, referring to the post-apocalyptic zombie television series.
Sonia Lagarde, the mayor of Nouméa, speaking to the French daily Le Monde, said the approval of the changes by both houses of the French parliament should be postponed.
The government heads of four other French overseas territories – Réunion in the Indian Ocean, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean and French Guiana in South America – on Sunday called for the voting changes to be withdrawn altogether to avoid “civil war”.
The New Caledonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) said on Monday that the troubles had caused “catastrophic” economic damage, with 150 businesses “looted and set on fire”.
Military aircraft carrying the remains of two gendarmes killed in New Caledonia landed in France early on Monday. “Their names were Nicolas Molinari and Xavier Salou,” the French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, said on X. “The whole nation bows before their coffins.”
Paris has accused a group known as Ground Action Coordination Cell, or CCAT, of being behind the riots.
CCAT said on Monday it was “maintaining” barricades that were in place. Some CCAT leaders are under house arrest on suspicion of organising the troubles.
Indigenous Kanaks had suffered from discrimination for too long, the group added, insisting it sought a peaceful resolution, but criticising the French “colonial state” plan to expand voting rights.
One resident, Laloua Savea, said: “The islands are on fire, for sure, but we have to remember that they tried to be heard for a long time and it led to nothing.
“It had to degenerate for the state to see us, for the politicians to see us.”
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMijAFodHRwczovL3d3dy50aGVndWFyZGlhbi5jb20vd29ybGQvYXJ0aWNsZS8yMDI0L21heS8yMS9uZXctY2FsZWRvbmlhLXJpb3RzLXN0YXRlLW9mLWVtZXJnZW5jeS1ub3VtZWEtYXVzdHJhbGlhLW5ldy16ZWFsYW5kLWV2YWN1YXRpb24tZmxpZ2h0c9IBAA?oc=5
2024-05-21 08:13:48Z
CBMijAFodHRwczovL3d3dy50aGVndWFyZGlhbi5jb20vd29ybGQvYXJ0aWNsZS8yMDI0L21heS8yMS9uZXctY2FsZWRvbmlhLXJpb3RzLXN0YXRlLW9mLWVtZXJnZW5jeS1ub3VtZWEtYXVzdHJhbGlhLW5ldy16ZWFsYW5kLWV2YWN1YXRpb24tZmxpZ2h0c9IBAA
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Australia and New Zealand send planes to fly citizens out of New Caledonia - The Guardian"
Post a Comment