After a vicious cyclone this month razed slums housing many undocumented immigrants on the French island territory of Mayotte, Safina Soula didn’t shed a tear.
As the chief of an advocacy group representing folks from Mayotte, Ms. Soula staunchly supported an operation that the French authorities began final 12 months to destroy the slums and deport undocumented immigrants, most of whom come from the close by Comoros islands.
She hailed the cyclone as “a divine Wuambushu” — utilizing the title of the slum clearance operation, and added, “Now the state should react rapidly and forbid the reconstruction of those shantytowns.”
Cyclone Chido, which struck on Dec. 14 and killed a minimum of 39 folks, is inflaming already harmful tensions over immigration on Mayotte, an archipelago off Africa’s japanese coast. After the catastrophe, France’s inside ministry stated that almost a 3rd of Mayotte’s 320,000 residents had been undocumented immigrants. Locals are calling for the federal government to ramp up efforts to deport them.
Many Mahorais, as locals are identified, have lengthy blamed immigrants for committing crimes and straining assets. Mayotte, the place practically 80 % of the residents dwell in poverty, is the poorest place in France.
The folks of Mayotte and Comoros share a standard ancestry. However, in a decisive referendum in 1974, Mayotte was the one a part of the Comoros archipelago that voted to stay a part of France.
