The equatorial rain streams on the ground of the center La Verdure, a vast space located behind a state administrative building, on the outskirts of Cayenne. Inaugurated in July 2022, it was to accommodate eighteen asylum seekers, in converted former offices. They are now more than 80 on the site. About twenty single people sleep on a narrow covered terrace, protecting themselves from the rain under tarpaulins stretched over duvets and suitcases. “It’s better than on the sidewalk, next to the cathedral”notes Zoïk, a Moroccan forty-something, alluding to the first place of life of many asylum seekers upon their arrival in the capital of Guyana.
At La Verdure, seven Syrian and Palestinian families have found a place under the carbet-kitchen, where they have pitched their tents. “We sleep on floor mats two centimeters thick, we had a power cut for three days and there are insects”, explains a Syrian national who shows the arms of his two children, covered with bites. The luckiest have waited several days before having rooms vacated by other families who have obtained housing in town.
At the end of the corridor are the toilets and the only shower in the center, for eighty people. “We managed the site until December 31, 2022, then it had to be evacuated, but while waiting for other accommodation, people are still there”testifies Basharat Muhammad, president in Guyana of Humanity First, an NGO based in London, which still provides lunch and dinner. “The problem is that the inputs are more important than the outputs”he adds.
Discovery on the Internet
In this French department, the first asylum candidates from Arab countries – Syrians fleeing the war – arrived in 2015. For them, applications are accepted at 90%. In 2021, Syrians counted with Palestinians represented 20.6% of asylum seekers (692 applications). It was 30.2% in 2022 (942 applications), almost as much as Haitians, whose share is falling after forming the bulk of the 20,000 applications recorded between 2015 and 2020.
Visiting the department on Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 January, the Minister Delegate for Overseas Territories, Jean-François Carenco, underlines that this flow, of around thirty arrivals per day, is fueled by the asylum procedure. humanitarian aid from Brazil. French diplomacy pushes Brasilia to reform it.
Among the migrants from the Middle East and Africa, many discovered the destination on the Internet. “On social networks, we say that there is a country after the sea where you can seek asylum, we saw that it was Guyana”explains Yamna [tous les prénoms suivants ont été changés à la demande des personnes], a young agronomist from Western Sahara, a region disputed by Morocco and the Polisario Front, separatist. “We are persecuted and we seek international protection”, she says. At La Verdure, twenty-seven Sahrawis have taken the road to exile, via neighboring Brazil.
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