Two men have been killed in New Caledonia during a police operation to detain activists suspected of involvement in May’s deadly unrest which was sparked by attempts from Paris to change voting rights in the French Pacific territory, officials said.

The deaths during the overnight operation south of the capital Nouméa took the death toll in the months of unrest in the French Pacific territory to 13.

Public prosecutor Yves Dupas said on Thursday that security forces on an observation mission fired two shots after being “directly threatened by a group of armed individuals”.

The first “hit a man, aged 30, positioned as a lone gunman, in the right side of the abdomen,” Dupas said in a statement. “The second shot hit a man, aged 29, in the chest.”

Police were looking for around a dozen people suspected of involvement in attacks on security forces.

“We’re not terrorists, we’re not in a state of war,” said one mother in the village where the security operation was taking place.

Last week, French authorities in New Caledonia announced an extended curfew, banning gatherings and travel across the archipelago from 6pm to 6am for fear of protests by the Indigenous Kanak people around next week’s anniversary of the French takeover of the Pacific territory.

The Kanak people have long sought to break free from France, which first took the Pacific archipelago in 1853 and only granted citizenship to all Kanaks in 1957.

The latest violence flared on 13 May in response to attempts by President Emmanuel Macron’s government to amend the French constitution and change voting lists in New Caledonia, which Kanaks feared would further marginalise them by granting more rights to recent arrivals from mainland France.

Macron declared a state of emergency two days later, rushing in 3,500 troops to help police quell the unrest. Thirteen people, mostly Kanaks, have now died in the violence, including two members of the security forces. One of them was killed after his weapon accidentally discharged.

The aim of police intervention overnight Wednesday was to arrest 10 people who have been suspected of participating in two-weeks of violence in May that included blocking whole districts around the capital and beyond, the archipelago’s main road, arson and looting.

In June, 11 Kanak activists were arrested in a broad police raid targeting the Field Action Coordination Unit. The detentions were part of a police investigation launched on 17 May, just days after protests against the Paris-pushed voting reform turned violent.

Seven of them, including Christian Tein, a Kanak leader of the pro-independence movement known as the Field Action Coordination Unit, were flown 17,000 kilometres away to mainland France for pretrial detention.

The charges that they face include complicity in attempted murder, organised theft with a weapon, organised destruction of private property while endangering people, and participation in a criminal group with an intent to plan a crime.

Tein’s group accused French authorities of “colonial practices” and demanded the activists’ immediate release and return to their homeland. In a recent statement, posted on social media the group vowed that “the Kanak people will never give up on their desire for independence with peaceful means.”

In the past seven months, the Field Action Coordination Unit has organised peaceful marches in New Caledonia against French authorities and the Paris-backed voting reform.

The reform has now been side-lined as Macron’s new prime minister Michel Barnier wrestles with political blocks in a fractured parliament to form a government following inconclusive legislative elections in July.

Agence France-Presse and Associated Press contributed to this report