2023-04-27 15:55:23
Tensions continue in Mayotte. Security operations continue on the island, where the police intervened overnight from Wednesday to Thursday to put an end to urban violence. A “small slum” must also be evacuated this Thursday, said the prefect of this French department in the Indian Ocean. “We are continuing security operations in Mayotte, in particular in the neighborhoods in which we have gangs of delinquents”, declared Thierry Suquet during a press briefing on Thursday morning.
According to the prefect of Mayotte, the night from Wednesday to Thursday was peppered with “a lot of urban violence” in Doujani, in the town of Mamoudzou. Young people “attacked the police” present and “there were attempts to set fire to vehicles and buildings”. The police arrested two people and nine police officers were injured, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
The prefect was speaking in Longoni, in the town of Koungou (north of the island), where a small shantytown is to be dismantled on Thursday to make way for a building trades high school. This area, subject to a demolition order since December, housed a dozen families but was “empty” of permanent inhabitants, according to Thierry Suquet. Accommodation solutions have been offered in recent months to those who go there and back, he said.
“We have demolished 2,000 unsanitary habitats on the island”
This type of operation “makes it possible to provide individual solutions for people who live in unworthy conditions but also to advance the development of Mayotte”, argued the representative of the State.
In Longoni, two backhoe loaders took place Thursday morning on the path leading to a vacant lot about twenty meters long. “We have been in the process for a year, we have had no notification” while “my mother lives on this land”, said Zarianti Bina, 32, on the spot. “There is no solution, nothing at all”, added this woman.
Asked about the meager results at this stage of the Wuambushu security operation, marked by the deployment of 1,800 police and gendarmes, the prefect replied that it gave “a decisive boost”. “For two years, we have demolished 2,000 unsanitary habitats on the island,” he noted. As part of this operation, France plans to deport Comorians in an irregular situation to Anjouan, the Comorian island closest to Mayotte.
The Comoros reopen their ports
The Comorian port authorities announced on Thursday that boats from Mayotte were once again authorized to dock, after a suspension of a few days. But “will only disembark tomorrow (Friday) passengers (Comorians) who will be provided with their national identity card”, declared Mohamed Salim Dahalani, director of the port authorities.
The Comoros have undertaken in an agreement signed in 2019 to “cooperate” with Paris on immigration issues in exchange for French aid for the development of the archipelago of 150 million euros. But “the Union of the Comoros does not have to pay for the consequences of an uncoordinated Wuambushu operation,” government spokesman Houmed Msaidie reiterated on Thursday.
Demonstration of support
The operation is closely watched by human rights activists. The Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon, said on Wednesday that she was “particularly attentive to the unconditional respect” of fundamental rights in Mayotte, announcing the dispatch of lawyers. Associations have launched several appeals to the courts against the “stripping” operations, that is to say the destruction of sheet metal boxes. The Mamoudzou court suspended the evacuation of a large slum in Koungou (north-east), Talus 2 at the beginning of the week.
The deputy LR of Mayotte Mansour Kamardine denounced a “judicial harassment orchestrated by associations Droidelhommists, hand in hand, with partisan magistrates”. The elected officials of the 101st French department express broad support for “Wuambushu”, in tune with a large part of the population. Calls for blocking actions are multiplying within citizen groups who hope to put an end to the insecurity undermining the territory.
Several hundred Mahorais, including a majority of women, thus gathered this Thursday at the Chirongi stadium (south) to call for the intensification of “Wuambushu”. “Let the government lead this operation, it listened to us,” said Mariam Said Kalam, elected from Chirongi. Under a cloud of tricolor accessories and French flags brandished by the women, banners proclaimed: “Stop residence permits” and “thank you to the police, everyday heroes”.
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