Migrants evacuated from schools were gathered at Kwalé college

While teachers were returning to school this Monday, January 20, the prefecture had to face a dilemma: where to relocate the asylum seekers and African refugees still living in certain schools since Cyclone Chido? They were evacuated during the day in particular from the Younoussa Bamana high school and the Zena M'déré college in Petite-Terre, after several mobilizations of parents of students and the collective of citizens of Mayotte 2018. Many residents commented on the networks social services the passage of several school buses heading south, ready to mobilize at the prospect of their arrival in their village. “Be careful south east center Africans come to us, they be vigilant“, announces for example an Internet user.

The evacuated migrants were finally gathered at the Kwalé college, which had also been occupied for five weeks. According to our information, between 400 and 600 people arrived at the end of the afternoon. Tents were airlifted to the establishment's athletics track to accommodate them. This scene angered residents of Tsoundzou, who gathered to denounce this new population. Another scene of tension: upon the arrival of food, people from the surrounding slums tried to enter the school to benefit from food distributions before having their access blocked by the police.

This solution is temporary, other sites to accommodate them are in preparation. In Kawéni, a camp project was planned on the urban renewal site, near the Lycée des Lumières. The residents of Kawéni ended up blocking the national road to protest against this project, the prefect went there to meet them. One way”to reassure them that the migrants would not go to the Kawéni area that we had initially planned“, explains François-Xavier Bieuville this Monday evening.

“The objective assigned to me by the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Overseas Territories was to liberate two symbolic establishments, the Bamana high school and the Petite-Terre school, the objective has been fulfilled”, specifies the prefect. “We did not carry out this operation on the sly, we raised this subject with all the elected officials, in particular the mayor of Mamoudzou and the departmental elected officials.“There now remains a new objective, which almost sounds like a return to square one. “The idea now is to find a lasting solution, because Kwalé must be a temporary solution, it is a school like any other“, summarizes the state representative.