In an open letter, the citizen groups of Mayotte demand from the government “extraordinary measures”, including “a rapid and structured reconstruction plan” after the passage of Cyclone Chido on the archipelago.
Collectives of Mahorais citizens demanded, this Saturday, December 28, “concrete responses” and immediate from Prime Minister François Bayrou, expected this Monday, December 30 in Mayotte, fifteen days after the passage of Cyclone Chido which devastated the archipelago.
François Bayrou will arrive in Mayotte accompanied by a delegation of ministers, including Manuel Valls (Overseas) and Élisabeth Borne (National Education).
About ten people gathered
To make themselves heard before the arrival of members of the government, around ten people gathered this Saturday, December 28 in Petite-Terre, at the roundabout of a strategic road between Dzaoudzi, the town of embarkation to go by barge in Grande-Terre, and the rest of Petite-Terre, where the airport is located.
“We hope that the Prime Minister, upon his arrival, will provide concrete answers and actions. We want to tell him that the aid announced for relief is insufficient,” Sylviane Amavi, general secretary of the Mouvement 2018 collective, told AFP. of Citizens, created the same year to denounce the insecurity on the archipelago.
“We are told a lot of things: that they will help us, that there are people mobilized for us, but for two weeks, we have not seen anyone,” lamented Ramatou Chebani, one of the demonstrators.
“Our elected officials should help us, but we have the impression that they have let us down,” she added. In an open letter, the citizen collectives of Mayotte denounce the “glaring insufficiency of the support measures” after the passage of the cyclone.
“Unacceptably slow”
“The arrival of rescuers – technicians, engineers and specialized personnel – was marked by unacceptable slowness, and their number remains dramatically below real needs,” write the collectives, adding to the long list of emergencies to be dealt with difficult access basic necessities, the restoration of the electricity network which is slow, the destroyed schools and the risk of looting and squatting of housing whose occupants have left the archipelago.
According to the latest report from the Ministry of the Interior on Friday, electricity had been restored to 46% of the population and running water to almost the entire population.
The collectives also demand “extraordinary measures”, including “a rapid and structured reconstruction plan”. They also demand the creation of an “exceptional solidarity fund” to compensate the victims, including the uninsured, and the “elimination of property taxes for the current year”.
