A French territory located off the coast of Southeastern Africa plans to demolish foreigner-populated informal settlements and deport dozens of undocumented migrants back to their country of origin. While the local population and elected officials support the project, others express concern.
Residents of Mayotte, a French island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa, are holding their breath.
A new police operation nicknamed "Wuambushu" ("recovery" in Mahorais) is on everyone's mind. Starting next Thursday (April 20), police will bulldoze hundreds of informal settlements occupied by foreigners for the next three months.
Dozens of undocumented migrants will also be arrested and deported to their country of origin. Nearly all of the migrants who live in the targeted slums are from neighboring Comoros, an East African island located some 240 km away.
The start of the operation coincides with the end of Ramadan and the beginning of a French parliament debate on immigration.
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The French government has not commented on the operation.
Authorities have already been mobilized on the ground: 500 police officers have been deployed to reinforce the 1,350 police and gendarmes already present on the French island.
Hotel rooms have been requisitioned to accommodate the civil servants.
65% of foreigners live in slums
The tension in the air has been palpable in the days leading up to the operation.
Many associations refuse to speak to the media for fear of reprisals.
Humanitarians worry about a repetition of the violence seen in December 2021 when protesters blocked the headquarters of La Cimade -- an association offering help to migrants in the island's capital Mamoudzou -- preventing teams from working with exiles.
A political group hostile to migrants spearheaded the action.
A large part of the Mahoran population is in favor of the "Wuambushu" operation and castigate the associations that express concern for migrants. A handful of local radical activists even promise to "do the job" if the government doesn’t carry out its plan to demolish slums and carry out mass evictions.
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"Exceptional delinquency"
The island of Mayotte, where the average age is 23, has witnessed strong demographic growth in past decades. In 1991, The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) listed 100,000 inhabitants; today the number is up to 350,000.
The rapid growth is due to high birth rates and irregular immigration from the neighboring island of Comoros. Nearly 50% of the population of Mayotte comes from Comoros. According to the INSEE, 65% of these foreigners live in precarious housing.
Mayotte is France's poorest territory and experiences "exceptional delinquency", the INSEE wrote in 2021, with theft rates three times higher than in mainland France.
Some inhabitants and politicians have established a link connecting immigration and delinquency. In an interview with the weekly newspaper Journal du Dimanche, Gérald Darmanin said that a "significant part of crime comes from immigrants."
Forced displacement of 17,000 people
The state, supported by most local elected officials, has embarked on a vast operation to combat illegal immigration since 2018. It has also made fighting illegal immigration a theme of its essential mission in Mayotte. Since then, an average 25,000 people have been expelled every year except during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This newest operation seems unprecedented in its scope. According to the local press, the government plans to expel more than 250 foreigners a day, principally Comorians, and send them back to their country of origin. It also plans to destroy approximately 10% of the informal settlements in Mayotte, leading to the forced displacement of around 17,000 people by June.
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Several people have expressed their disapproval of the upcoming operation. In a letter sent to the concerned ministers, the prefect and the director of the Mayotte Health Agency, a nurse collective expressed their "deep concern about the impact of this project on the health of immigrants."
"Previous large-scale interventions in the fight against immigration or insecurity have had dramatic consequences," wrote the health personnel. In particular, the letter mentioned limited access to care, the risks of epidemic infection in emergency accommodation areas or the forced isolation of sick children without parents.
"Aggravation of fractures and social tensions"
The president of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) Jean-Marie Burguburu also wrote to Gérald Darmanin urging him to "give up" the project because of the risk of "aggravating fractures and social tensions in an already very fragile context (...) and the violation of respect for the fundamental rights of foreigners in the context of mass expulsions."
Criticism also came from abroad. On Monday (April 10), the Comorian government broke its silence to officially ask Paris to abandon the "Wuambushu" operation.
A few days earlier, Comorian civil society organizations held a press conference to warn of a "massacre to come."
The French police are also worried about what will happen when the reinforcements have left.
Moreover, "for those who speak Mahorais, Uwumbushu (as the linguists of the island agree to write it, editor's note) can also be translated as venturing into the unknown", departmental counselor Soula Said Souffou told the AFP.