“Where have the people gone?” » The question immediately occupied people's minds after Cyclone Chido devastated the Mayotte archipelago on December 14. And the rumor quickly grew. “60,000 dead, estimates by rescuers”posted on the social network X the Réunion la 1ère channel, Thursday December 19, before deleting the publication, denied by the Ministry of the Interior. But the question remained: where have the people gone?
The same day, while the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, went into contact with the crowd in the town of Pamandzi, he was taken to task. In front of the cameras, the centrist deputy (LIOT group in the National Assembly) from Mayotte Estelle Youssouffa speaks to him about “buried illegal population”the smell of “rotting body” in the neighborhoods. “We are facing mass graves, there are no rescuers”she assures. The head of state turns to the prefect of the department, François-Xavier Bieuville. “No one went there?” »he asks. “For the moment, we have not yet gone up there for reasons of emergency regarding vital things”replies the senior official.
In the devastated archipelago, no one went to the slums. State services simply carried out helicopter flights. They are convinced that the bodies are lying under the metal sheets. As early as December 15, the prefect had mentioned “probably several hundred, maybe a thousand, even a few thousand” of deaths. “Communication that is far too anxiety-provoking and not based on any concrete data”judges an official under the seal of anonymity. Symptom of a lack of organization? From imperfect crisis management? Reflection of the conditions prevailing in the 101e French department, where a third of the population – the poorest – live in abandoned slums?
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