As part of the “Wuambushu” operation dedicated to the fight against illegal immigration, these soldiers have been tasked with stepping up their patrols to spot the kwassas-kwassas, these fishing boats sheltering undocumented Comoros inhabitants. Franceinfo followed one of these sea trips.
The sun will soon set and the interceptor vessel of the Mayotte nautical brigade is slowly moving away from the coast of Mamoudzou. “We left for a patrol from 4 p.m. to midnight. In addition to the two gendarmerie boats, two PAF boats (border police) which occupy the different sectors of the island”, explains Mohamedi, one of the two captains, in permanent contact with the operator of the national navy.
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“We put a little more resources on the water, we rearticulated the device”, he explains. As the “Wuambushu” operation against delinquency and illegal immigration continues, Mohamedi and his colleagues have been instructed to reinforce their patrols. In their sights: kwassas-kwassasthese fishing boats from the Comoros with dozens of irregular passengers on board.
Mayotte, arrival point for the whole region
On board the ship, two screens. “It allows the person who accompanies me to have the visual directly on the cartography of the island to guide me if necessary”, describes Ludovic, also at the controls. Several messages report fishermen, this is called “the removal of doubt“.
“The navy has different radars to monitor the whole lagoon. And if they ever see what we call an echo – the radar will pick up an object on the water – about which they have a doubt, they will send us so that we can check, continues the soldier. We will tell them if they are simple fishermen or a boat that could come from the Comoros or Madagascar sometimes”.
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Mayotte has become the point of arrival for migrants from the entire region: Comorians in the lead, but also Malagasy and East Africans. Last year, 8,000 people had already been arrested, an increase of 23% compared to 2021. According to the prefecture of Mayotte, for the quarter of 2023 alone, 2,255 people arrested and 173 kwassas-kwassas intercepted, a figure at its highest for two years.
“This necessarily generates an identity check”
“You have to imagine that these are all the same boats that are, for the largest, between eight and nine meters, describes Ludovic. Sometimes it’s just wood or whatever. And they are up to 30, even 40 people sometimes, which is very dangerous for navigation. So we are going to go there first and if we see that the navigation conditions are not good for them, we will get them on our boat, we will bring them back to earth. And that inevitably leads to an identity check. And people who are unable to provide proof of their identity will be handed over to the necessary services for further verification.”specifies the policeman.
On these makeshift boats, “there are men, women, children, families, he slips. Sometimes it also happens to have sick people.
“They tell us clearly that it’s the hospital where they come from that tells them ‘If you want to be treated, you go to France because we won’t be able to do anything’
Ludovic, captain of the nautical brigade of the gendarmerieat franceinfo
That evening, the sea was rough, but the situation calm. Then a fluorescent green laser beam flashing off attracts the attention of the military. “You have to see if the laser is not guiding a boat at sea, Mohammad says. But since there is no light… In general, fishermen have their light when they are at sea”. After several minutes scanning the surface of the water using powerful searchlights, false alarm. “These are things that happen. And it is better to remove the doubt, to be sure that it is not a boat that needs to rescue rather than let it pass”, concludes Ludovic.
The memory of a “one-year-old baby”
Sometimes the police arrive too late. Warrant Officer Stéphane, originally from Grasse, and in reinforcement for four months in Mayotte, remembers his first day with the nautical brigade: “She marked me that one, it was the first, but also because there was a dead baby on the boat, a one-year-old baby. All that follows… arrival of help by boat, the removal of the remains on the quay in Mamoudzou. It is shocking”.
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Despite the refusal of the Comoros to let the boats of expelled Comorian migrants land on its coasts, the gendarmes say they are continuing with their mission.
The report of Sandrine Etoa-Andegue in Mayotte
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