An aerial view of the destroyed Passmainty slum in the suburbs of Mamoudzou, the capital of the French territory of Mayotte island. — ©2025 The New York Times Company
AFTER a vicious cyclone razed slums housing many immigrants on the French island territory of Mayotte last month, Safina Soula did not shed a tear.
As the leader of an advocacy organisation representing people from Mayotte, Soula staunchly supported an operation that French authorities started in 2023 to destroy the slums and deport immigrants in the country illegally, most of whom come from the nearby Comoros islands.
She hailed the cyclone as “a divine Wuambushu” – using the name of the slum clearance operation, and added: “Now the state must react quickly and forbid the reconstruction of these shantytowns.”
Cyclone Chido, which struck on Dec 14 and killed at least 39 people, is inflaming already dangerous tensions over immigration on Mayotte, an archipelago off Africa’s eastern coast.
After the disaster, France’s Interior Ministry said nearly a third of Mayotte’s 320,000 residents were immigrants in the country illegally. Locals are calling for the government to ramp up efforts to deport them.
Many Mahorais, as locals are known, have long blamed immigrants for committing crimes and straining resources. Mayotte, where nearly 80% of the residents live in poverty, is the poorest place in France.
The people of Mayotte and Comoros share a common ancestry. However, in a decisive referendum in 1974, Mayotte was the only part of the Comoros archipelago that voted to remain part of France.
In recent years, people on Mayotte have attacked the homes of immigrants and stood in front of hospitals and immigration offices to block immigrants from entering.
Mahorais have voted in large numbers for far-right, nationalist politicians, who have lobbied for tougher immigration laws specific to Mayotte. Among their demands is ending birthright citizenship for children born to non-French parents on the islands.
On Dec 24, the French government announced that it was restoring boat service between Mayotte and Comoros – and that Comorians could use it to return home, free of charge.
Immigrants in Mayotte have described living a precarious existence long before the cyclone hit.
They say they are constantly stopped by police. Many have been deported multiple times. After each deportation, they take a dangerous 70km journey on a rickety boat from Comoros to reunite with their families in Mayotte.
Residents, and even a senior government leader, said they feared that fighting could break out between migrants and Mayotte natives over the island chain’s depleted resources after the cyclone ravaged some communities.
Sylvie Zein, 37, a doctor from mainland France, said that a few days after the storm, she was near the mosque in the village where she had been living – Mtsamboro, in the northern part of the country – when residents became alarmed at the sight of about 20 immigrants standing near the beach with machetes.
The village director announced over a loudspeaker, “Go to your homes because they are coming,” Zein recalled.
“You have people with nothing and you have people with everything,” she said.
“These people, in the beginning, didn’t like each other. So now the tensions, it’s much worse.”
In the decades since the 1974 referendum, Mayotte and Comoros have taken divergent paths.
Despite Mayotte’s poverty, French support has meant it is better off economically than Comoros. Many Mahorais express resentment that Comorians, who rejected France, now seek refuge and economic opportunities in a French territory.
“Comorians chose to be independent, and Mayotte decided to continue its adventure with France,” said Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, mayor of Mamoudzou, the capital of Mayotte. “Now each must take responsibility for their choice. We believe that Comorians should stay there.”
Two days before the cyclone arrived, a 34-year-old woman from Comoros, who is not being identified to protect her identity, was deported to Comoros, leaving behind her five children, all of whom were born on Mayotte. It was the third time she had been deported since she moved to Mayotte in 2009.
She cried day and night, she said, worried that her children would not survive the vicious 190kph winds in the tin shack where they lived on a steep hillside. But the day after the storm passed, her 14-year-old daughter, her eldest child, called her in tears and said they had all survived.
Four days later, the woman said she paid €300, to cram into a kwassa-kwassa, a wooden boat, for the treacherous 11-hour journey to return to Mayotte illegally. She arrived at 3am five days later, happy to be reunited with her children.
“They’re always sending me back to Comoros like it’s a game,” she said. “There’s a day that I will die at sea.” — ©2025 The New York Times Company
