the Comoros “do not intend to welcome deportees”

Where will the people expelled from Mayotte go? As the operation looms “Wuambushu” (“recovery”, in Mahorais) wanted by the French authorities, “the Comoros do not intend to welcome deportees”, Moroni government spokesman Houmed Msaidie told AFP on Friday, April 21. The country, whose nationals are numerous to populate the slums of the overseas territory, asks the French government to “renounce this operation”.

The Comoros, which have no detention center on their territory, claim not to have the means to accommodate an influx of migrants and accuse Paris of wanting to sow disorder on the archipelago. “We do not have the means to absorb this fabricated violence of Mayotte by the French state”, had declared at the beginning of the week the governor of Anjouan, Anissi Chamsidine.

Gérald Darmanin claims to want to target “violent bands”

Invited by franceinfo on Friday morning, the Minister of the Interior clarified the objectives of this operation “already in progress” according to him. “There are about sixty criminal gangs that terrorize the French. The priority is their arrest”he assured, rejecting in passing a goal of deportations to the border. “We are already deporting all the foreign offenders we apprehend. It would be absurd to give yourself an additional objective.”

“In addition, we are going to destroy by court order 1,000 slums, which in Mayotte are called bangas and which would be unacceptable in mainland France, especially around Mamoudzou”detailed the Minister. “Because it’s far from the eye of France, we let it happen”, he continued. “There are people without water, without electricity, without gas, old people, disabled people, babies who live in these situations. The Republic is destroying slums and relocating people to real housing”, he assured.