Desolation and chaos are the words that are most repeated to describe the situation in Mayotte, the French archipelago devastated by the tropical cyclone Chido. The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, announced this Monday that he will travel to the small territory in the Indian Ocean “in the coming days.” The objective, as stated on social network X, is to support “our fellow citizens, officials and emergency services” in the face of this tragedy. The head of state will also declare a day of national mourning due to the magnitude of the catastrophe. The authorities have not been able to give an estimate of the number of victims, but the prefect of the islands, François-Xavier Bieuville, had said that there could be “several hundred” or “thousands” of deaths.
It will take “days and days” to know the exact number of victims, lamented the acting Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, before a crisis meeting chaired by Macron. The newly elected Prime Minister, François Bayrou, also participated in the event, although he did so electronically from the city of Pau, of which he is mayor. The head of the Government has called for “national solidarity” in the face of the emergency situation that the island territory is experiencing. Retailleau, for his part, has stressed that the priorities are the shipment of food and water in this French overseas department, the poorest in the country.
The images recorded in the archipelago show apocalyptic scenes, with entire neighborhoods razed, roads collapsed by debris and destroyed buildings. The Minister of Health, Geneviève Darrieussecq, has insisted on the need to “reinforce” the only hospital on the island, which has suffered significant flooding. The Mayotte archipelago, located off the coast of Mozambique, is the poorest department in France. 77% of its population, of 320,000 inhabitants and around half of them irregular immigrants, live below the poverty line. At least a third of those residing on the islands live in shanties, which are locally known as bangas. These homes have been “completely destroyed,” reported Retailleau. The territory, of 374 square kilometers, also suffers significant insecurity problems.
“People are hungry and thirsty”
The cyclone Chidowith gusts that exceeded 220 kilometers per hour over the weekend, is the most intense to hit this territory in more than 90 years, indicated Météo-France, the country’s official meteorological information service. French authorities have established an air and sea bridge from the Réunion archipelago, located 1,400 kilometers away, to bring emergency aid to the islands. Mayotte is about 8,000 kilometers from Paris, the French capital. The Government will send up to 800 police and civil rescue personnel, in a race against time to rescue the victims. Aid will also include food and water.
“It is a landscape of desolation, Mayotte has been decapitated,” Estelle Youssouffa, a deputy from the centrist group LIOT, said this Monday. In a live connection with BFMTV, she described that “not a single tree is left”, before being interrupted by the lack of electricity. 85% of the population is currently without power, which also complicates fuel distribution. The telephone network only works at 20% of its capacity. “It is an indescribable chaos,” he warned for his part in Franceinfo Dhinouraine M’Colo Mainty, first deputy mayor of Mamoudzou, the capital of the archipelago. “People are hungry and thirsty,” he stressed.
The authorities also fear that the health situation on the island will worsen. “This is a dramatic catastrophe, like those we have already seen in Haiti and other places,” said the president of Doctors of the World France, Jean-François Corty, warning of the risk of a new cholera Pandemic; the last one barely ended in July in the island territory.
The National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, observed a minute of silence in tribute to the victims of the phenomenon. The deputies of the European Parliament did the same. “Mayotte is Europe and Europe will not abandon you,” declared the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola.
The climate disaster occurs at a time of political crisis in France, with a Government still in office after the appointment, on Friday, of François Bayrou as the new prime minister. It is the first crisis he has faced since his election as head of the Executive.
