If no official communication has been made by the government or the Head of State concerning this operation, many organizations and local elected officials have already expressed themselves on this highly sensitive subject.
What is he preparing for Mayotte? A mysterious operation called “Wuambushu” seems to be taking shape in this French department located in the Indian Ocean and facing rampant crime against a backdrop of a migration crisis. The Comorian government asked France, Monday, April 10, to abandon this project of expulsions which would target migrants from the Comoros. Here is what we know about this operation, which is still very vague but already widely commented on.
The operation aims to expel Comorian migrants
The executive maintains the greatest vagueness on this operation, called “Wuambushu” (“recovery” in Mahorais). To date, neither the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, nor the President of the Republic have officially confirmed the holding of this operation of evictions, destruction of illegal housing and arrests. However, The chained Duck revealed many elements of this operation at the end of February. “Half a thousand gendarmes and police are preparing to invade the archipelago. (…) Their mission? To put an end to illegal immigration and subdue offenders with machetes”writes the satirical weekly in its edition of February 22, 2023.
The newspaper attributes the design of this vast operation, which also provides for the destruction of slums, to Gérald Darmanin, who would have obtained the validation of the Head of State in February, during a Defense Council, according to a source familiar with the matter. at AFP. It should start around the end of Ramadan, April 21. According to La 1ère, reinforcements and equipment have already arrived in Mayotte for the operation.
In mid-March, Emmanuel Macron expressed to his Comorian counterpart, Colonel Azali Assoumani, his “worry” against illegal immigration from the Comoros. It is estimated that a quarter of the population of Mayotte is in an irregular situation, according to AFP. In 2022, 571 boats carrying 8,000 migrants were intercepted at sea and 25,380 people were deported to the border, the vast majority to the Comoros. Mayotte also knows “unusual crime”according to INSEE, which notably noted in 2021 a theft rate three times higher than in France.
The police on the spot “are on standby”
Operation “Wuambushu” is awaited by police officers on the spot. The CFDT Alternative Police union thus lent its support to this “punch operation” by the voice of its local representative, Monday, April 10, on La 1ère. “The Mahoran police are waiting for this operationsays Abdel Aziz Sakhi. We need adequate equipment and training in new intervention techniques to reduce delinquency.” “It is a large-scale, unprecedented operation”he still welcomed.
According to several police unions, members of the CRS 8 company will be deployed in Mayotte, reports La 1ère. It is a special intervention force created in 2021 to be able to be deployed “in the event of serious disturbances to public order and urban violence”, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Composed of 200 CRS, it was recently deployed in Rennes during demonstrations against pension reform and in Marseille following violence against a background of drug trafficking. Regional intervention and security teams should also go on site, according to La 1ère. These are prison administration intervention units responsible for intervening in the event of tension in a prison establishment.
The Comorian president is opposed to it
Even before the officialization of the operation, the Comoros appealed to France. “The Comorian government learned with astonishment the news of the maintenance of the French government project (…) aimed at proceeding, in the Comorian island of Mayotte, with the destruction of slums, followed by the expulsion of all their occupants without- papers, to the island of Anjouan”, the island of the Comoros archipelago closest to Mayotte, announced a press release from the Comorian presidency published Monday, April 10. The Comorian authorities therefore ask the French authorities “to give it up”.
This position was expected on the spot. Comorian civil society organizations held a press conference on Wednesday April 5 to warn of what they consider to be a “slaughter to come”. “We intend to seize international organizations to inform them of the massacre that France wants to perpetrate on the Comorian island of Mayotte”reacted Youssouf Attick Ismael, the president of the Maore Committee, an organization (close to the power of Moroni) who considers that Mayotte belongs to the Comoros.
Opinions are divided among the Mahorais
This operation with vague contours has already aroused many reactions on the spot. The island’s health personnel also recalled, in a press release, “dramatic consequences” previous large-scale interventions in the fight against immigration.
Conversely, five Mahoran collectives co-signed a letter to the attention of Gérald Darmanin, Monday April 10, asking for the continuation of the “Wuambushu” operation and denouncing “political motives” opponents of this operation, according to La 1ère. “I want this operation to go to the end, because in the end, it is civil peace that is at stake”wrote Mansour Kamardine, the LR deputy of Mayotte, in a press release.
Same message from the Mahoran deputy Estelle Youssouffa, who estimated during a press conference broadcast on Facebook that this operation is “Our last chance to restore order and security. We don’t back down, we hold on, we don’t bow our heads, we don’t bend!”
Humanitarian organizations fear the worst
Several national and international organizations have denounced the operation. The president of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, Jean-Marie Burguburu, wrote to Gérald Darmanin to urge him to “to renouncer” to this project, considering the risk of“worsening of 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”.
Unicef also expressed its concern about respect for the rights of foreign children in the context of this operation, in a press release published on March 31, 2023. The UN agency fears that the increase in the number of arrests during the operation “mechanically implies an increase in the error rate in the removal procedure”which could lead to a higher number of isolated children in Mayotte.