Some 1,600 members of the police, including 800 gendarmes equipped with drones, clear axes and provide aid. On the public order front, no looting has been reported but all patrols are on alert.
The police are in a real race against time to try to get Mayotte out of the chaos into which Cyclone Chido plunged it on Saturday. Faced with the catastrophe, the State, completely helpless, tries to regain control. While the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, arrived on the devastated island on Monday morning, some 1,600 members of the internal security services have been mobilized for nearly 48 hours. Assignment ? Trying to stabilize a more than shaky situation. For 48 hours, the police have been calling for help from all the forces present on the island while nearly 800 gendarmes, including 450 from six mobile squadrons, are hard at work on the ground. “Even if two barracks were destroyed and several others were damaged during the disaster, the gendarmes are progressing amid scenes of desolation, where everything is blown away, to first clear areas and clear traffic routes”explains to Figaro Colonel Marie-Laure Pezant, spokesperson for the gendarmerie.
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The military deployed on the island must also contribute to relief efforts, in particular thanks to nine drones responsible for helping with reconnaissance missions over the most inaccessible areas. For the moment, no source is able to provide a reliable human toll, as the damage is colossal on the island. A third of precarious habitats were literally blown away. While a gendarmerie helicopter has been flying over the island since Saturday to provide «vision 3D» and inform the authorities, nine armored vehicles are mobilized, as is the local branch of the GIGN. “For the moment, the security situation is contained and no significant disturbance to public order is to be deplored”assures Colonel Marie-Laure Pezant.
Victim identification experts
According to our information, the police say they are “very vigilant” even if no scene of regular looting or violence has yet been brought to their attention, in particular because the emergency number (17) was still inoperative on a large part of the island on Monday morning. In Mamoudzou, however, communications have been restored and the police are receiving an avalanche of calls.
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In the early hours of the crisis, scattered thefts could have been committed, in homes that were gutted and temporarily abandoned by their occupants. “A revolt of hunger and thirst is to be feared”confides a security source. Thanks to the intervention of technicians in charge of the gendarmerie's information and communication systems (CIS), radio communications between soldiers, police and emergency services, degraded in places, were able to be restored. Still according to our information, around a hundred gendarmes are preparing to leave Reunion to arrive in Mayotte within a few days while around fifty others should leave this evening from mainland France. Among them are specialists in victim identification from the Criminal Research Institute (IRCGN) based in Pontoise.
Migratory waves
Located in the middle of the Indian Ocean, 8,000 kilometers from Paris, the Mayotte archipelago sees boats loaded with migrants arriving from the Comoros every day. More than half of the inhabitants there are of foreign origin. Even if the prefect François-Xavier Bieuville welcomed in the Mahorais media a drop in the “general delinquency of 5.8%” between last January and October, compared to the same period in 2023, the French archipelago remains faced with endemic insecurity. At the end of September, two young people were killed there with knives, including a high school student during one of the brawls between rival gangs. In May, a 16-year-old teenager had already lost his life after being stabbed in Barakani (central west). THE “road cutters” present on the island do not hesitate to sow panic among the population. And the cyclone has just added to the psychosis.
