“Mayotte is no longer a gateway, it has become a mill,” annoys Ahmada, who has been on strike for three days. “We live in prison. There is not a house that is not surrounded by bars, all because we let everyone return to our homes,” continues this resident of Sada, a village neighboring Chiconi, a large village in the west of Grande-Terre, in Mayotte.
Since Monday, the main island of the small archipelago of this department of around 310,000 inhabitants, located between Madagascar and East Africa, has been paralyzed by road blockages. Uncontrolled immigration, insecurity: the grievances are known and the Collective of Citizens of Mayotte 2018, criticized by certain humanitarian associations for positions deemed xenophobic, did not have to force itself to mobilize. Consequence: the majority of public services are operating slowly or are closed, town halls are blocked, and several schools have no longer welcomed students since Monday.
“We learned at least one thing from France: the strike”
“It will last at least a month,” assures Cervo, a representative of the collective. We learned at least one thing from France: the strike. When the population does not rise up, it is not heard. » And the occupation of a stadium by African asylum seekers maintains tensions. The start of its evacuation, this Thursday, may not be enough to ensure a return to normal: the uneasiness is deeper.
Posted behind tires, pallets, blocks of rock and garbage dumpsters, around twenty residents and activists of the Collective of citizens of Mayotte 2018 hold the “picket” at Chiconi. The population “suffers too much”, testifies Fatima, sunglasses, hijab on her hair and wax tunic on her shoulders, “exasperated by the situation”. “We are constantly having our cars broken into, we are victims of attacks. The arrival of African refugees is the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” continues this resident of Sada (west).
The controversial Wuambushu operation did not have the expected results
Despite the evacuation of the camp this Thursday, Safina Soula, the president of the collective, assured AFP on Monday that she wanted to “keep the roadblocks until the migrants are expelled”, while the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin is committed to ensuring that around forty people who have obtained asylum are repatriated to France.
Launched in April 2023, the controversial Wuambushu operation to combat delinquency and irregular immigration, which aimed in particular to dry up the flow of arrivals from neighboring Comoros, did not have the expected results. The end of 2023 was even marked by an increase in violence: looting and burning of homes in Bandraboua (north) at the beginning of November, repeated clashes between gangs from opposing villages, up to the death of three young people in a little more for a week in December, during clashes which traumatized the archipelago.