Guadeloupe placed under curfew after anti-health pass violence
A roadblock set up by the General Union of Workers of Guadeloupe at the Perrin Les Abymes roundabout in Guadeloupe on November 15, 2021. © Carla BERNHARDT / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Roads blocked, buildings and vehicles set on fire, schools closed: the State responded on Friday evening to the deterioration of the situation in the French department of Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean, which originated in the anti-health pass mobilization, by establishing a nighttime curfew.
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The prefect of Guadeloupe, Alexandre Rochatte, announced an immediate curfew, until November 23 (from 6:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.) on the island "
given the ongoing social movements in the department and acts of vandalism
", have advertised its services.
In a statement, the state representative in this department of about 400,000 inhabitants located 600 km northeast of the coast of South America, said he took into account "
fires of public property, roadblocks , throwing stones at the police, mortar fire
”, and also prohibits the sale of gasoline in jerry cans.
The French Antilles, where vaccination remains in the minority although on the increase, was faced this summer with a very harsh fourth wave of Covid, the incidence rates having reached more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Martinique,
and up to 'to 2,000 cases in Guadeloupe
while the alert threshold is located at 50 cases.
The government decided on Friday to send "
in the coming days
" 200 police and gendarmes to strengthen the police, while violence and blockades are increasing.
"
We let the ambulances, nurses and people who take care of the elderly pass through,
" an individual posted on Friday at a roadblock on National Road 1, plastic cup and bottle of rum in hand.
And also those who pay their passage, sometimes for 10 euros, he said.
A mobilization against the health pass
In the evening, new barricades were erected in Basse-Terre, the central town of Guadeloupe, quickly cleared by the police, then reconstituted by the demonstrators. “
We reduced a lot of roadblocks during the day. Initially, we were on nearly fifty on the whole of mainland Guadeloupe, mainly on the main roads,
”said the gendarmerie, adding that“
4 or 5 gendarmes have been injured
”since Thursday evening.
The mobilization in Guadeloupe was launched five days ago by a collective of union and citizen organizations against the health pass and the vaccination obligation of caregivers against Covid-19. It is now coupled with violence committed by rioters. The gendarmeries of Lamentin and Morne-à-L'Eau, localities located to the west and east of the island, were "
besieged
" by people sometimes "
hooded
", gendarmes injured "
by jets of stones
”and vehicles set on fire, according to police and judicial sources. After a particularly violent night from Thursday to Friday, schools remained closed on Friday and, due to numerous roadblocks, activity is slowing down.
(
with
AFP
)
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