LIVE – Mayotte: more than 200 Red Cross volunteers may have disappeared after Cyclone Chido

In Mayotte, a curfew will be introduced on Tuesday evening from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., after the devastating and deadly passage of Cyclone Chido, a “tragedy” for Emmanuel Macron who announced that he would go to the archipelago “in the next few days.” This curfew is put in place for security reasons, in order to avoid looting, three days after the passage of this cyclone, in the battered archipelago which is lacking everything and where the inhabitants are alarmed at a deteriorating health situation.

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“Faced with this tragedy which upsets each of us, I will declare national mourning”, said on X Monday evening after a government crisis meeting the head of state who will go there “in the coming days” “in support” to the population and all those mobilized.

More than 200 Red Cross volunteers may have disappeared after Chido

According to official sources, more than 200 Red Cross volunteers may have disappeared after Cyclone Chido.

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Cyclone Chido kills at least 34 people in Mozambique

Cyclone Chido has killed at least 34 people in Mozambique, the Mozambican National Institute for Risk and Disaster Management announced on Tuesday.

The cyclone, which ravaged the French archipelago of Mayotte on Saturday, then struck the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado on Sunday, where 28 people were killed, according to the institute. Three others died in Nampula province and three others in Niassa province, inland, he added.

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At least 21 dead

For now, the official death toll stands at 21 hospital deaths and the local prefect has set up a “dead search mission”. But the authorities fear “several hundred” deaths, perhaps even “a few thousand” in this territory and the poorest department in France. “The toll will be heavy, too heavy,” the resigning Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau predicted on Monday.

The count is all the more complicated because Mayotte is a land with a strong Muslim tradition and, according to Islamic rites, many of the deceased were probably buried within 24 hours.

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“The island is totally devastated” declared Bruno Retailleau in Reunion Monday evening, upon returning from a trip to Mayotte, specifying that “70% of the inhabitants were seriously affected”. The minister announced the arrival “in the coming days” of 400 additional gendarmes to lend a hand to the 1,600 gendarmes and police present on the archipelago, while specifying that there had been “no real looting”.

The cyclone, the most intense that Mayotte has experienced in 90 years, ravaged the Indian Ocean territory on Saturday, where around a third of the population lives in precarious housing, which was completely destroyed. Chido was probably favored by surface waters close to 30°C, which provides more energy for storms, a global warming phenomenon already observed elsewhere this fall.

The health crisis threatens the island, patients evacuated to Reunion

Three days after the disaster, the priority is to ensure the “vital needs” of residents in terms of water and food, Bruno Retailleau insisted on Monday. “We are starting to run out of water. We have a few bottles left but there are almost no stocks in the stores,” worries Antoy Abdallah, 34, resident of Tsoundzou, to AFP.

“We risk a health crisis,” warned Ben Issa Ousseni, the president of the Departmental Council on the Mayotte la 1ère channel. On the archipelago, the first medical desert in France, the only hospital, badly damaged, is “gradually resuming its activity” and will be supported by a field hospital from Thursday, indicated Bruno Retailleau.

On Monday, the first 25 patients “in urgent situations” were evacuated to Reunion. Another priority for the authorities is sending tents and tarpaulins to restore habitats that have been completely destroyed or whose roofs have been torn off by wind gusts that reached more than 220 km/h. According to the French Red Cross, 20 tonnes of material are being transported.

François Bayrou calls for national solidarity

Faced with the emergency, the new Prime Minister François Bayrou called for “national solidarity” Monday evening, from his municipal council in Pau. A trip to the detriment of the meeting in Paris of the crisis unit which sparked strong criticism. On Tuesday, the President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet said that she would have “preferred that the Prime Minister took the plane to Mayotte”.

Solidarity is already being organized on the ground despite degraded conditions, while a large part of the archipelago is still deprived of electricity, mobile network and internet. Rescuers are still looking for victims and expect to find many victims in the rubble of the very populated shanty towns, particularly in the heights of Mamoudzou, the capital having called on Monday its adult residents and in “good physical condition” to “strengthen the teams on the ground.

According to Florent Vallée, of the French Red Cross, “entire families” and “many minor children alone” and “abandoned” live in bangas, these small traditional houses now destroyed. “The priority today is water and food. We must at all costs prevent hunger after this crisis of incredible intensity,” assured Tuesday morning on RFI the mayor of Mamoudzou, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila.

Calls for solidarity and minutes of silence multiplied in France and abroad on Monday, with the United States indicating that it was ready to “offer appropriate humanitarian aid”.