A court in Mamoudzou on Tuesday stopped the clearance of one slum located at Koungou near the capital at the last minute, saying the action had no legal foundation and threatened public liberties.
Some 1,800 members of the French security forces have been deployed for the operation, including hundreds sent from Paris, with young locals and police clashing in the district of Tsoundzou outside the main town of Mamoudzou since Sunday.
The operation, aims to expel migrants from urban slums on Mayotte to improve living conditions for locals in France’s poorest department.
Most of the illegal migrants being deported are Comoran. It also said it had suspended passenger traffic at a port where deported migrants usually land.
The plan is for those without papers to be sent back to the Comoran island of Anjouan, 70 kilometres away from Mayotte. “We will not stop the operations… to fight against delinquency and unsanitary housing, with their consequences on illegal immigration,” the most senior Paris-appointed official on Mayotte.
In 2019, France pledged 150 million euros or $161 million, in development aid as part of a deal to tackle human trafficking and ease the repatriation of Comorans from Mayotte. Around half of Mayotte’s roughly 350,000 population is estimated to be foreign, most of them Comoran.
Many African migrants, especially Comorans, try to reach Mayotte illegally every year. These risky crossings risk ending in tragedy when the “kwassa kwassa” — the small motorised fishing boats used by people smugglers — are shipwrecked.
Mayotte is the fourth island of the Comoros archipelago that France held on to after an initial 1974 referendum, but it is still claimed by Moroni.
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