Fire engulfed the Marshall Islands Nitijela (Parliament building) just after midnight on last night with firefighters risking their lives as they battled the blaze early today in a bid to save the complex.

“Sometime around midnight or shortly after this morning, the Parliament building in Majuro caught fire, started burning,” RNZ Pacific’s correspondent in the Marshall Islands Giff Johnson said.

“The fire department here is pretty nonexistent, except for an airport fire fighting team, which was called in, but they weren’t able to get there for over an hour.”

Johnson said the building was completely engulfed by the time the fire truck arrived on site.

He said the Parliament chamber and offices, the library and all the archives, “have been all destroyed”.

“Everything’s wiped out. All the records are gone,” he said.

“A lot of the structure, which is concrete, is still standing, but it’s now noontime (Tuesday, NZT), and it’s still smoking. Firefighters are still on site, trying to quell it.

‘Alternative plans’
“The building is no longer usable, and already, alternative plans are being talked about, about where they’re going to hold Parliament, because Parliament is actually in session right now.

“Fortunately, the fire started late overnight so no indication that anybody was harmed.”

Johnson said the Marshall Islands did not have much capacity in firefighting and fire inspection processes, making it difficult to determine the cause of the fire.

He said a lot of entities in the Marshall Islands did not have back-ups and it would take people weeks to figure out what they had lost and what they could access.

“From purely a records point of view, and just getting their system back up and running, it’s going to be a while because everything has been digitised at the Parliament, and it’s a really complicated situation.”

The Marshall Islands Cabinet was holding an emergency meeting and was expected to make a statement later today.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

More armoured vehicles and firetrucks have been delivered for Kanaky New Caledonia’s security forces, including police and firemen.

The France-freighted shipment consignment arrived aboard a cargo vessel, the Calao, the French High Commission announced on Thursday.

It contained 10 more armoured vehicles for the security forces, as well as 15 other vehicles said to benefit local firefighters.

The fire-fighting trucks will be delivered to the local Civil Security department.

“This is to pursue efforts to secure [New Caledonia] . . . It will be used to renew or replace equipment that has been damaged, including trucks and armoured vehicles,” French High Commissioner in New Caledonia Louis Le Franc said during a media briefing.

The 10 new armoured vehicles, known as Centaur, will be added to six others that were already deployed in New Caledonia since last month.

On board the same vessel, another batch of light armoured vehicles, dedicated to “exploration”, are described as bearing “reinforced windows” to protect passengers against bullets.

While efforts are ongoing to remove the numerous roadblocks in Nouméa and its suburbs, in the Northern Province, three French gendarmes have been injured and sustained bone fractures after their car was targeted and hit by a vehicle used by rioters, the French High Commission said.

One of the gendarmes has since been medically evacuated.

The incident took place in Houaïlou, in the north of the main island of Grande Terre.

Earlier incidents, especially in urban areas, involved home-made Viet Minh-like traps such as manhole covers being removed and dissimulated under branches, while sharp iron rods had been sealed inside the hole.

Several gendarmes who were tricked and fell into the hidden hole suffered serious injuries to the legs.

In other instances, especially on the roadblocks where French security forces are still trying to clear traffic access, gas bottles have been converted into explosive devices after being fitted with homemade remote-controlled detonators.

Saint Louis church presbytery destroyed by fire
Over the past few days, another hot point has been the village of Saint Louis, in the township of Mont-Dore (near Nouméa), where one rioter was killed earlier this week after firing gunshots to the gendarmes, who later retorted.

The death toll from the unrest is now 10.

On Thursday night, Saint Louis’s Catholic Mission, which had been set up in 1860 by the Marists, was set on fire and the presbytery (which had been occupied by rioters for the past few days) has been completely destroyed.

The Marist Brothers and Sisters had earlier been evacuated by French security forces.

Violent unrest has been ongoing in New Caledonia since mid-May, when riots, looting, arson, broke out.

This was initially in protest against a French government project to amend the Constitution and modify the rules of eligibility for local elections, a change perceived by the pro-independence movement as a bid to dilute the political strength of indigenous Kanak voters.

The riots, the worst since a quasi civil war erupted during the second half of the 1980s, have since caused the deaths of eight civilians and two French gendarmes.

Several hundred businesses and private residences were also set on fire and destroyed, for a total cost of some 2.2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion), according to the latest estimates.

As a result, several thousand employees have lost their jobs.

Two indicted women released – in home detention

Last month, a group of pro-independence activists was indicted and flown to metropolitan France, where they are now serving pre-trial detention in several jails.

They are facing a range of charges, revolving around allegations of “organised crime”.

The arrests prompted a fresh upsurge in violence.

Last Wednesday, the only two women in the group, Frédérique Muliava (chief-of-staff of pro-independence figure and New Caledonia Congress President Roch Wamytan) and Brenda Wanabo (described as communications officer of the controversial pro-independence “CCAT” – field actions coordination cell) have been allowed to leave their jail, located respectively in Riom (near Clermont-Ferrand) and Dijon (eastern France).

Pending their trial before a French court, the two will however remain under home detention in the same cities and wearing electronic monitoring bracelets.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It comes as days of unrest followed a controversial proposed constitutional amendment which would allow more French residents of New Caledonia to vote — a move that pro-independence protesters say would weaken the indigenous Kanak vote.

Six people have been confirmed dead so far in the state of emergency and there are reports of hundreds of people injured, numerous fires and looting in New Caledonia’s capital Nouméa.

Emma Royland is one of several international students at the university in Nouméa and said everyone was getting a bit “high-strung”.

“There’s this high-strung suspicion from every noise, every bang that ‘is that somebody coming to the university?’”

Royland said a roster had been set up so that someone was constantly up overnight, looking over the university campus.

Nights had become more quiet, but there was still unrest, she said.

Concern over technology
The vice-president of the university had visited yesterday to bring students some cooking oil and expressed the concern the university had for its expensive technology, Royland said.

“They are very worried that people come and they burn things just as a middle finger to the state.

“We’ve been told that ‘if you see a fire, it’s unlikely that the firefighters will come so we will try and manage it ourselves’.”

Royland said water to the part of Nouméa she was in had not been affected but food was becoming an issue.

The university was providing food when it could but even it was struggling to get access to it — snacks such as oreos had been provided.

But the closest supermarket that was open had “queues down the block” that could last three or four hours, Royland said.

Seeing ‘absolutely crazy things’
She was seeing “absolutely crazy things that I’ve never seen in my life”.

That included people holding guns.

“It is quite scary to know just 20 seconds down from the university there are guys with guns blocking the road.”

Yesterday, the NZ Defence Force (NZDF) said it would fly into New Caledonia to bring home New Zealanders while commercial services were not operating.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said New Zealand was waiting for the go-ahead from French authorities, based on safety.

“Ever since the security situation in New Caledonia deteriorated earlier this week, the safety of New Zealanders there has been an urgent priority for us,” Peters wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

“NZ authorities have now completed preparations for flights using NZDF aircraft to bring home New Zealanders in New Caledonia while commercial services are not operating.

‘Ready to fly’
“We are ready to fly, and await approval from French authorities as to when our flights are safe to proceed.”

Royland praised the response from New Zealand, saying other countries had not been so quick to help its citizens.

She said she had received both a call and email from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade asking her if she was in immediate danger and if she needed assistance straight away.

Everyone she had spoken to at the university seemed impressed with how New Zealand was responding, she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz