in Mayotte, the despair of African migrants

Cans of water, a bag of coal, some stretched fabrics and filthy mattresses on the floor. During his three-day visit to Mayotte land, the Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories, Gérald Darmanin, could not ignore this unfortunate camp in front of the gates of the prefecture of Mayotte. “We were hoping for a gesture, answers, but we were not told a word, the galley continues”, laments Moussa (he does not wish to give his name, like all the people cited by their first name alone), a 27-year-old Burundian national. Around him, about twenty asylum seekers, from the African region of the Great Lakes, came ” to show oneself “ to protest against the reception conditions reserved for them by the French department.

Children play, others cry. A 3-week-old infant receives a bottle from his big brother’s side, prostrate in pain after having spilled the common pot of boiling water on his arms. “We live like that, and nobody cares, I didn’t think France was like thatcontinues Moussa. I fled Burundi in 2015, because of the war, I stayed in the refugee camps in Uganda for three years, then when I arrived in Tanzania, I was offered to come here, I was told that I would be taken care of, but I have never been so mistreated in my life. »

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers In Mayotte, Gérald Darmanin continues his offensive on immigration

In Mayotte, where the chain of illegal immigration from Africa – you have to pay around 2,000 euros from Tanzania, passing through the Comoros for a trip in kwassa-kwassa, fishing canoes – continues to become more professional, the flow of African refugees landing on its shores is unabated. Deluded men, women and children. Because if the long-awaited French flag floats on the facades of the prefecture of 101^e department, the regime for asylum seekers is derogatory thereto. Very rarely housed during the investigation of their files for lack of places of social accommodation, they receive in parallel only one euro per day. “What do we do with it?” We cannot live with dignity. I don’t eat so I can feed the children.”comments Virginie, a Congolese migrant accompanied by three toddlers. “They don’t even go to school, no one wants to enroll them”she complains.

Racketeering and attacks

Because, beyond legal discrimination, the “Africans of Mayotte” denounce a patent xenophobia towards them. Racketeering by gangs of young people and gratuitous assaults are on the increase. On July 13, a father died after barbaric relentlessness – mutilation with machetes and stones. “It was butchery, wild hatred”, comments Moussa, friend and compatriot of the victim. The public prosecutor also evokes an ethnic murder.

You have 39.06% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.