By Tassilo Hummel
MAMOUDZOU (Reuters) – Angry residents of a Mayotte neighbourhood damaged by Cyclone Chido heckled French President Emmanuel Macron when he toured it on Friday, complaining that potable water had not reached them nearly a week after the storm hit the Indian Ocean archipelago.
Officials in France’s have only been able to confirm 31 fatalities from Chido but some have said they fear thousands could have been killed.
Some of the islands’ worst-affected neighbourhoods, hillside shantytowns comprised of flimsy huts that are home to undocumented migrants, have not yet been reached by rescue workers.
As Macron walked through the neighbourhood of Tsingoni, residents sweating in the heat, decried a lack of provisions.
“Seven days and you’re not able to give water to the population!” one man shouted at Macron.
Macron, who had extended his visit to Mayotte to spend more time surveying the damage from the worst storm to hit the territory in 90 years, responded that authorities were scaling up distributions.
“I understand your impatience. You can count on me,” he said.
Some in Tsingoni greeted Macron more positively, thanking him for coming to see them. A 70-year-old woman offered a blessing while patting him on the head.
The previous evening, Macron replied testily to a jeering crowd that chanted for his resignation and accused his government of neglecting Mayotte, which is located some 8,000 km (5,000 miles) from metropolitan France.
“You are happy to be in France. If it wasn’t for France, you would be 10,000 times worse off,” he said, using an expletive.
He told reporters on Friday that France had invested heavily in Mayotte but that its institutions could not keep up with arrivals of undocumented migrants, most from Comoros.
Concerns about immigration have helped make the territory a stronghold for the far-right National Rally, with 60% voting for Marine Le Pen in the 2022 presidential election runoff.
‘WE NEED WATER’
Ali Djimoi, who lives in the Kaweni shantytown on the outskirts of the capital Mamoudzou, said Mayotte had been “completely abandoned” by the French state.
“The water running out the pipes – even if it’s working you can’t drink it, it comes out dirty,” he told Reuters.
Djimoi said eight people in his immediate neighbourhood were killed in the storm, two of whom were quickly buried close to a mosque.
Authorities have warned it will be difficult to establish a precise death toll, in part because some victims were buried immediately in accordance with Muslim tradition, before their deaths could be counted.
The many undocumented migrants from Comoros, Madagascar and other countries also complicate matters. Official statistics put Mayotte’s population at 321,000, but many say it is much higher.
Three out of four people live below the national poverty line in Mayotte, which remains heavily dependent on support from metropolitan France.
France’s defence minister Sebastien Lecornu said relief efforts were intensifying, with 800 soldiers already in Mayotte. A ship carrying 80 tonnes of provisions arrived at port and a mobile control tower to replace the one destroyed in the storm would be operational later on Friday, he said on X.
Supplies were also on their way from Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Italy, including tents and beds for the homeless, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said.
Aboubacar Ahamada Mlachahi, a 34-year-old construction worker whose house was destroyed by the cyclone and is now squatting on a hillside near the freight port, was one of many people struggling to secure basic needs.
“What matters first is water, for the children. Before fixing the houses, before fixing anything, the daily life… We need water,” he told Reuters.
The islands, close to the Comoros archipelago, first came under France’s control in 1841. In 1974, Mayotte voted to stay French at the same time the three main Comoro islands opted to form an independent state.
Chido also killed at least 73 people in Mozambique and 13 in Malawi after reaching continental Africa, according to officials in those countries.
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