2024-01-27 10:38:25
The gendarmes began this Saturday morning, on the orders of the prefect of Mayotte, the lifting of roadblocks, erected against “insecurity” and the presence of African migrants, which have paralyzed the island for several days, indicated the prefecture. Security forces intervened at six in the morning to lift the blockades. Several of the island’s main roads were cleared on Saturday morning. “No blockages will be tolerated,” specifies the prefect, Thierry Suquet, in a press release.
The gendarmes identified a total of 14 roadblocks and 500 demonstrators, the gendarmerie said, specifying however that certain roadblocks, once lifted, were put back in place a little further away. The previous evening, the prefect had ordered “the immediate lifting of the roadblocks” which have paralyzed the island since Monday morning.
Blockages since Monday
A group of residents of Mayotte, fighting mainly against immigration, erected these blockades on Monday to denounce “insecurity” and the presence of African migrants on the island. The collective protests in particular against the installation of asylum seekers from Great Lakes Africa in a camp surrounding the Cavani stadium, in Mamoudzou, which is electrifying the situation on the island. The dismantling of this camp itself began on Thursday. The collective also demands “the end of territorialized stay”, which prevents holders of a residence permit in Mayotte, as well as “the end of the permanent confinement of residents of Mayotte due to insecurity”.
For the prefecture, “the blockages make the lives of our fellow citizens much more complicated and even more difficult day by day”. Thierry Suquet mentions in particular the impossibility for certain caregivers to reach the Mayotte hospital center (CHM). “All services have thus moved to “minimum service” and ambulance transport between hospital sites is restricted or even canceled,” he laments.
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