Clashes, attacks on school buses … Mayotte “on the brink of civil war”.

Mayotte has been the site of violence between youths from rival neighborhoods for several days. Mamoudzou, the largest city on the French Indian Ocean department of Mayotte, has been rocked by inter-district conflicts for ten days, which left one victim on November 12, a 20-year-old man killed with a machete. , and several wounded. The neighborhood of Kaven, where the victim was from, caught fire after an attack on a school bus in the middle of last week. Between 200 and 250 youths from this district gathered on Saturday to fight from Dujani district further south, according to police. On Sunday, the driver was stabbed in Mtsapere Bonovo, another district in Mamudzu, according to a police source. Several children were injured, including a 12-year-old minor who was hit in the head with a machete during an attack on his school bus last Wednesday.

“Fear in the Belly”

Mayotte MP Estelle Yusufah (Liot) launched a “Scream of Sorrow” on “Cycle of Vendetta”in: “barbarism and horror”. on the island “general indifference” In Paris. “We are talking about gangs of hundreds of young people, most of them Comorians, who are in an irregular situation, who are twelve to thirteen years old, armed with machetes and sowing death.”he said. “I wonder when is enough?” What is it worth to our children who go to school with fear in their stomachs for months? The deputy assured that the department can pass “in the civil war”. Faced with the escalation, the Interior Ministry announced on Monday the deployment of dozens of police from Raid, the police’s elite intervention unit, which arrived in Mayotte on Tuesday to reinforce order.

In response to Estelle Yusufah’s question, the Minister of Interior and Foreign Affairs, Gerald Darmanin, announced in front of the assembly on Tuesday: “Mahora people who have chosen to stay in the Republic (…) need the protection of the state.”adding that the government had “Several ways of development”. how “a very significant strengthening of the means of justice”. Answer: “in a meeting of many arrests”. On the military side, Gerald Darmanin assured that he is working with the Secretary of the Armed Forces to add a specific chapter during the development of the military programming law; “For Guyana and Mayotte, strengthen military measures”.

The violence of “not living”.

The minister also mentioned the start of the operation without specifying a date “big circle” for “End ‘banga’ (informal tin huts) in part of Mahoran area”without specifying when. “We will send a lot of mobile gendarmes and government resources to effectively turn the curve of violence and allow young Mahoras to go to normal classes.”, he added. Mamudzu Mayor Ambdilwahedu Sumaila, who like the rest of Mahoran’s political class has approved sending elite units to the island, is asking for them to stay. “Until the Republic restores its rights”.. According to him, it is no longer a question of justice “To maintain order”, “We have to fight them, go find them where they are in the slums, the remote areas, catch them and bring them to justice.” he told AFP.

After a restless evening and night, with barricades dismantled in several parts of the city, police intervened again on Tuesday afternoon between Kaveni and Majikavo, where groups of youths were burning corpses. In mid-October, Mayotte’s mayors and elected officials alerted Paris about the violence. “uninhabitable” and growing in the department, demanding that “The state fully assumes its sovereign security mission.” During a visit in August, Minister of the Interior and Foreign Affairs Gérald Darmanin promised reinforcements to the gendarmerie, which would be available next summer.