Tensions linked to Operation Wuambushu are not abating. This Thursday, the shipping company providing the link between the French department of Mayotte and the Comoros announced “suspend rotations until further notice”. The French authorities have deployed significant resources for several days to dislodge illegal migrants from the slums of Mayotte as part of a controversial operation. Some 1,800 police and gendarmes are mobilized.
Comorians in an irregular situation, the vast majority of undocumented migrants present in the French archipelago in the Indian Ocean, must be sent back to the nearest Comorian island, Anjouan, just 70 km away. But a standoff has been under way since Monday, Moroni having refused the docking of a boat from Mayotte carrying 60 passengers including migrants and suspended passenger traffic in the port of Mutsamudu (Anjouan, north-west) where deportees are usually disembarked.
Identity card required
Comorian port authorities announced on Thursday that boats from Mayotte were once again allowed to dock. But “will only disembark tomorrow passengers who will have their national identity card”, said Mohamed Salim Dahalani, director of the port authorities, during a press conference at the port of Mutsamudu. Many migrants get rid of their papers once they arrive on foreign soil, in order to avoid being sent back to their country of origin or trying to pass themselves off as minors. Later in the day, the shipping company operating the link announced, however, that it was suspending traffic.
“The SGTM company has decided to suspend its rotations until further notice, given the current context, which is hampering the proper functioning of its activity”, it announced on Facebook as well as in a message distributed to its employees and whose AFP got a copy. In recent weeks, Moroni has multiplied calls for Paris to cancel the “Wuambushu” operation set up by French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, explaining that he does not have the means to accommodate an influx of migrants.
Commitment to cooperation
Comorian President Azali Assoumani, who has held the presidency of the African Union since February, said he hoped “that the operation will be canceled”, acknowledging that he did not have the means to stop it. The Comoros pledged in an agreement signed in 2019 to “cooperate” with Paris on immigration issues in exchange for development aid of 150 million euros.
“The Union of the Comoros does not have to pay for the consequences of an uncoordinated Wuambushu operation,” government spokesman Houmed Msaidie insisted on Thursday, reached by telephone. “No deportee has the right to be embarked” under penalty for the shipping company “to have its license withdrawn”, he added.