Deadly cyclone in Mayotte: lack of water and food is felt

A race against time is underway to help the victims of Mayotte, a French archipelago in the Indian Ocean devastated by a deadly cyclone, where water and food are lacking, and to find survivors in the rubble of the shanty towns.

French President Emmanuel Macron will chair a meeting devoted to the situation in Mayotte on Monday, the Élysée said.

The resigning ministers of the Interior and Overseas Territories, Bruno Retailleau and François-Noël Buffet, are expected for their part at the end of the morning in the poorest department in France, where the authorities fear several hundred of deaths.

A final assessment will be very difficult to be established, because the Muslim tradition, alive in Mayotte, wants the deceased to be buried within 24 hoursexplained prefect François-Xavier Bieuville on Sunday.

In addition, the territory’s illegal population exceeds 100,000 people according to the Ministry of the Interior, out of some 320,000 officially counted inhabitants, making an exhaustive count of the dead improbable.

With gusts of more than 220 km/h, Cyclone Chido, the most intense that Mayotte has experienced in 90 years, ravaged the small archipelago on Saturday where around a third of the population lives in precarious housing, totally destroyed. .

Huts destroyed, tin roofs blown away, electric poles down, trees uprooted… The residents, who remained confined during the passage of the cyclone, discovered, stunned, scenes of chaos. Many roads are impassable and many communications cut.

It’s carnage. The court, the prefecture, many services, shops, schools are on the groundtells Agence France-Presse (AFP) Ousseni Balahachi, a retired nurse, from Mamoudzou, the administrative center of Mayotte.

Lack of water and food, damaged hospital: the situation is critical

The control tower at Mayotte-Dzaoudzi airport has suffered significant damage, and the resumption of commercial flights is not envisaged until at best 10 daysindicated Monday to theAFP a prefectural source.

The situation of the healthcare system is very degraded with a very damaged hospital and medical centers also which are inoperabledeclared Monday the Minister of Health, Geneviève Darrieussecq.

The hospital suffered significant water damage as well as degradation, particularly in the surgery, resuscitation, emergency, maternity areas, therefore essential parts of the hospital’s operations. […]. Despite this, it continues to run in a degraded mannersaid the minister on the France 2 channel.

An air and sea bridge was organized from the French island of Reunion, a territory 1,400 kilometers away, to send medical and relief equipment and personnel. Some 800 civil security personnel are sent as reinforcements, with a field hospital and satellite transmission equipment.

Rescuers expect to find many victims in the rubble of the densely populated shanty towns, particularly in the heights of Mamoudzou, said the city’s mayor Ambdilwahedou Soumaila.

Teams have started working to free up access to remote areasOr we still hope to find survivorsadded the councilor, who specifies having received lots of cries for help.

Many undocumented immigrants from the slums had not reached the shelters provided by the prefecture, thinking that it would be a trap that was being set for them […] to pick them up and drive them outside the bordersaccording to former nurse Ousseni Balahachi.

Many victims reached accommodation centers on Sunday, reported Salama Ramia, senator from Mayotte. But unfortunately there is no water, no electricity. Hunger begins to risethe elected official was alarmed by the BFMTV channel.

A climate of insecurity already established

Some of my neighbors are already hungry and thirstyalso laments Lucas Duchaufour, a physiotherapist living in Labattoir, emphasizing that all the fruit trees, like the mango trees, have been uprooted.

Residents speak of a climate of insecurity, with scenes of looting in the industrial zone of Kawéni in Mamoudzou, as reported byAFP Frédéric Bélanger, 52 years old.

We are afraid of being attacked, of being lootedtold Océane, nurse at the Mayotte hospital center, to the BFMTV channel. Some 1,600 police officers and gendarmes are mobilized on the ground, particularly to avoid lootingindicated the prefect.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, assured that the European Union was ready to help France in the future.

After Mayotte, Cyclone Chido hit northern Mozambique on Sunday morning. At least three people were killed in the north of the country during its passage, which caused violent winds and torrential rains which also destroyed several buildings, according to a provisional report.

The damage recorded in the Comoros, an archipelago neighboring Mayotte, however, appears to be minor, except for agriculture.