Four days after the deadly passage of Cyclone Chido, life is slowly trying to return to normal in Mayotte. But on this archipelago in the Indian Ocean, 70% of the inhabitants were seriously affected by the cyclone and now find themselves without water, food or shelter.
Four days after the cyclone hit Mayotte, the landscape was disfigured. In the bangas, the Mahorais slums, the inhabitants now live as best they can in a field of ruins. In Labattoir, life resumes in the Cetam slum.
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“The wind took everything from us”
In the middle of the debris, a little girl shelters as best she can from the sun under a long wooden panel. It is here, on this almost bare ground, that her house was located before the passage of the cyclone. His mother, Touharati, says: “The wind took everything from us. It took away our house, we have nothing left, the beds are broken… The sofas are gone… The cup, over there, is all that we have. “We have nothing left,” she laments.
Some clothes, something to cook with, children’s toys and two mattresses… “We sleep there with my children, we put the mattress on and we sleep outside… We don’t have any equipment”, says the mother.
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“We are alive, that’s the main thing”
Touharati wants to move quickly to rebuild, even a makeshift shelter will suit him. Mohamed lends him a hand. He is luckier since he found refuge with neighbors in one of the few houses in the neighborhood still standing. When he thinks about the cyclone, his eyes darken. “It was a disaster, when you see that… You think you’re going to die with your family… It wasn’t easy but we’re alive, that’s the main thing!” he says.
From now on, the entire neighborhood is waiting for food, drinking water and for electricity to be restored to resume a more or less normal life.
