HAS Saint-Denis de La Réunion, in the interior courtyard of the La Maison de Mayotte association, pallets piled on top of each other are just waiting to be loaded and sent to the archipelago, devastated by cyclone Chido on December 14 last year.
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Basic foodstuffs, hygiene products, tools to temporarily rebuild and strengthen houses and, for several days, clothing and textiles “in good condition”. Here, as in various relays on the island, aid destined for Mayotte is centralized before being sent by sea and air.
The day after Chido's passage, Reunion Island, the main access point to Mayotte, was transformed into a platform, a logistics “hub” for aid from mainland France to respond to the health emergency. A real rear base, air and sea, for the relief operation.
Every day, people from Reunion drop off aid packages for the people of Mahor
“For 15 days, two containers from the delegation have already left, filled with some 70 pallets,” explain Allaoui and Houlam, two volunteers, “several tens of tons of aid. » These containers, loaded at the large seaport of the Port and transported by cargo ships and other liners, were chartered by the authorities after the establishment of a sea bridge between the two islands.
Eleven days after Chido passed through Mayotte, state services already confirmed the shipment of more than 300 tons of food and 1,900 tons of water by sea. That is more than 350 containers from distributors, associations and communities departing from Reunion Island for four days at sea towards the perfume island and the port of Longoni.
“The next day, after the cyclone passed, hundreds of people came to drop off packages,” explains another volunteer from the Mayotte delegation in Reunion. Some 6,500 Reunion Islanders placed foodstuffs in the premises to meet the needs of the victims. And the population continues to arrive. Every day, even on holidays. This Tuesday afternoon, New Year's Eve, Marie, who has lived in Reunion for four years, brings her package, mainly composed of bottles of water and toiletries. “It really mattered to me,” she confides. It's a small gesture for us here, on the smallest scale of all the logistics deployed, but so important for our Mahorese neighbors who do not have the chance to spend the same holidays as us this year. »
An impressive air bridge set up between Reunion and Mayotte
It is also by air that aid to Mayotte is transported. From December 15, the day after the cyclone, the airlift piloted by the services of the prefecture of Reunion enabled civil and military planes to transport human and material resources. “More than 553 tons of freight, including 113 tons of water, were sent,” according to the prefecture’s services.
The prefect of Reunion Island, Patrice Latron, confirmed Tuesday to the new Prime Minister François Bayrou and three of his ministers on a lightning visit to the island, to announce the “Mayotte standing” plan, the mobilization of military planes for the transport of freight. The A400Ms, with their cargo of 20 tonnes, were therefore dispatched for resupply of food and water. Just like the three Casas and the Dash of Civil Society. “There are 121 state or state-chartered flights that left here,” detailed the prefect of Reunion Island to the head of government, in one of the large hangars of air base 181, a real Reunion hub of transport. airlift for the delivery of reinforcements and freight from France.
The local airline Air Austral, which usually provides commercial service to Mayotte, has chartered several of its planes for passenger transfers, the movement of incoming reinforcements and medical evacuations.
In total, thanks to the establishment of an airlift, 3,000 professionals (soldiers, firefighters, caregivers, civil servants, etc.) were sent to lend a helping hand to the Mahorese authorities. One of the largest logistics planes in the world, the Antonov, also landed in Reunion on Sunday December 29. The cargo plane made it possible to ensure a large-scale transit by transporting around ten containers to establish a “living” base in particular.
“Exceptional mobilization is vital,” underlined the Prime Minister, pointing out the “tremendous work” accomplished in recent weeks.
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Some municipalities in Reunion also participated with the provision of housing for relay staff in transit to Mayotte. La Piroi, Indian Ocean regional intervention platform of the French Red Cross, located in Sainte-Marie de La Réunion and which leads a disaster risk management program in cooperation with National Red Cross Societies and Red Crescent, has already sent 110 tonnes of freight to Mayotte since the passage of the intense cyclone. “Mainly hygiene and construction products for emergency shelters,” according to Martin Marin, one of the employees. Not to mention part of the supervision of the Red Cross teams on the ground. Piroi employees did not fail to point out that Chido remains to this day “the biggest phenomenon” that the teams have had to deal with since the creation of the organization in 2000.
If the logistics seem perfectly oiled on paper, the local authorities have nevertheless called on the people of Reunion to reduce food donations, the island of Reunion also being in cyclone season.
