French authorities fear a “hunger insurrection” in Mayotte after the passage of Cyclone Chido

The French Government has deployed 1,600 soldiers, gendarmes and police in the Mayotte archipelago (320,000 inhabitants), a French overseas region, fearing the risks of an “insurrection of hunger and poverty”, a consequence of the devastating ravages of Cyclone Chido.

8,000 kilometers from France, north of the Mozambique Channel, north of Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean, the Mayotte Islands is the poorest territory in Francefrom afar. More than a third of the inhabitants are victims of the destruction of their homes (the vast majority of them are shanties), the death of all or several of the members of each family, the most tragic desolation of roads, public buildings, schools, centers hospitable.

Marie-Laure Pezant, colonel, spokesperson for the Gendarmerie, made this very provisional assessment in the middle of the afternoon on Monday: «The local gendarmes have also suffered the destruction of their barracks and are trying to advance in the territories victimized by the cyclone that destroyed the islands on the end from last week. This is an exceptional work, progress is made step by step, in landscapes of dramatic desolation.”

Another official source who prefers to remain anonymous underlines the risk of a more serious tragedyif possible: «An insurrection of hunger and poverty is to be feared. Before the cyclone hit, poverty was scary. After the cyclone passes, the survivors must face scary situations. “It has been necessary to resort to the Army, fearing greater risks.”

Representative of the State in Mayotte, the prefect François-Xavier Bieuville wishes to reassure: «Crime is a chronic problem. But we achieved a significant drop during the first months of this year. In order to control the crisis, in any situation, the government has decided to use teams of drones and military specialists in order to monitor, monitor and control any type of contained violence, with risks of unpredictable outbreaks.”

Among the urgently deployed military personnel are members of the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN), specialists in urban violence and the fight against very diverse forms of terrorism. «Mayotte has been experiencing for years a situation of endemic insecurity«, comments a police source, adding: “The cyclone has wreaked havoc. And the first victims are the poorest men and women. Among young people and adolescents, the temptation of violence, looting, has always been very high. And the situation is more dramatic than ever.

While the drones send privileged information about the state of all the territories affected by the cyclone, soldiers, gendarmes and police “comb” step by step the most inhospitable places, where the rescue tasks of the living and the dead continue, with great difficulty. . Without anyone daring to advance definitive “balances”, far from it, beyond the figures of several hundred or thousands of deaths.