Miss Mayotte is not going home straight away, so as to “not be another mouth to feed”

MAYOTTE – Miss Mayotte will wait a little before going home. This Thursday, December 19, Zaya Toumbou gave an interview to Parisian in which she explains that she will only return to the island devastated by the passage of Cyclone Chido from here “end of January or beginning of February”, “when the situation has stabilized a little”.

“I don’t want to be another mouth to feed in Mayotte. I hope to be useful. I relay the many messages I receive on social networks. People ask me where the help is, and say they are starving. They need food”insists the beauty queen, who was present on Saturday in Poitiers for the election of Miss France 2025.

She specifies on a daily basis: “ You should know that in Mayotte, almost all of the food comes from the fields behind the houses. People have their gardens where they produce food, cassava, bananas, breadfruit. All the trees have fallen, there is not a single one left standing, and famine can come very quickly. »

Zaya Toumbou, spokesperson

Although the first shipments of aid are arriving little by little in Mayotte, notably via the presidential plane this Thursday, they remain largely insufficient to date as the needs are so dire. Distribution began on Wednesday. Residents are currently entitled to two bottles of water, a can of sardines and a can of corned beef per person, according to Senator Saïd Omar Oili in an interview with Monde.

Another worrying subject: the very complicated census of the number of missing people, while many localities, with precarious housing, remain uncontactable. According to provisional figures, 31 deaths and some 1,400 injured have been officially recorded, but the authorities fear a much higher toll, with 70% of residents having been seriously affected.

At first without news from her father, Zaya Toumbou ended up contacting him after several days. He is not injured, but does not know how the rest of his family is doing. “ No one really knows what’s happening to everyone else. This is also what is very complicated », declares the young woman, still Parisian.

The latter is currently with her mother and her maternal family in a village near Lyon. “ Me, I will stay here then I will return to Mayotte to my father as soon as it is possible », assures Miss Mayotte, determined to be “ a spokesperson » from its overseas region.

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