Distraught and angry inhabitants of the French overseas department of Mayotte shouted out their despair to President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, December 19, five days after the department’s Indian Ocean archipelago was devastated by a cyclone, with lacking water and food, and fear of looting topping the grievances.
Macron, visiting the island to assess the destruction wrought by Cyclone Chido, said he would extend the trip by a day to inspect remote areas, as rescuers raced to search for survivors and supply desperately needed aid. Located near Madagascar off the coast of southeastern Africa, Mayotte is France’s poorest department.
Macron listened to the accounts, touching the arm of a woman in tears to comfort her. “I will do everything in my power so you have water, food and electricity,” he said, his promises receiving a mixed reception of hope and incredulity.
Macron vowed to rebuild the French island after the widespread destruction. The president told reporters that the government would also strengthen the fight against illegal immigration to the archipelago, “while at the same time rebuilding schools, rebuilding homes, rebuilding the hospital, and so on.”
‘Probably the worst natural disaster in centuries’
Macron’s plane carried medical and civil security personnel on board, as well as tonnes of food and supplies. “Don’t leave too soon,” airport security official Assan Halo pleaded with the president as he arrived. “We have nothing left.”
Some bystanders jeered the presidential convoy as it passed a petrol station where cars lined up in a long queue hoping to get fuel.
A preliminary toll from France’s interior ministry shows that 31 people have been confirmed killed, 45 seriously hurt, and more than 1,370 suffering lighter injuries, but officials say that, realistically, a final death toll of hundreds or even thousands is likely.
“The tragedy of Mayotte is probably the worst natural disaster in the past several centuries of French history,” Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said.
In response to widespread shortages, the government issued a decree freezing the prices of consumer goods in the archipelago at their pre-cyclone levels.
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Cyclone Chido, which hit Mayotte on Saturday, was the latest in a string of storms worldwide fuelled by climate change, according to meteorologists.
‘Mass graves’
An estimated one-third of Mayotte’s population lives in shantytowns, whose flimsy, sheet metal-roofed homes offered scant protection from the storm.
At Mamoudzou hospital center, windows were blown out and doors ripped off from hinges, but most of the medics had taken to sleeping at their battered workplace, on Wednesday, as Chido had swept their homes away. However, staff soldiered on despite the hospital being out of action, with electricians racing to restore power to a maternity ward – France’s largest, with around 10,000 births a year.
Much of Mayotte’s population is Muslim, whose religious tradition dictates that bodies be buried rapidly, so some may never be identified. “There are open-air mass graves. No emergency services. Nobody is coming to get the bodies,” said Estelle Youssouffa, an MP for Mayotte in the Assemblée Nationale.
When a man in a crowd told Macron that, in the shantytowns, people were burying the bodies in shallow graves, the president replied: “Yes, but where? Where?”
Assessing the death toll is further complicated by irregular immigration to Mayotte, especially from the Comoros islands to the north, meaning much of the population is unregistered.
Mayotte officially has 320,000 inhabitants, but authorities estimate the actual figure is 100,000 to 200,000 higher, when taking into account undocumented migrants.
