New clashes between rival gangs rocked Mayotte this weekend.

In response, the Raid, the elite intervention unit of the police, will be deployed by Tuesday in the French archipelago in the Indian Ocean, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

The "ten police officers" of the Raid must arrive "this [Monday] evening or [Tuesday] morning", it was specified from the same source.

On Sunday, a motorist was stabbed in Mtsapéré Bonovo, a village in Mamoudzou, capital of Mayotte, according to a police source.

"His vital prognosis is engaged," said a second police source.

Clashes between gangs from two neighborhoods gave rise to "throwing projectiles" at the police, "damaging vehicles and businesses", "cutting water supply pipes" and the fire in a car junkyard, according to the first source.

Machete attacks

“Residents have armed themselves with iron bars and machetes to defend themselves against the bands,” she added.

Barricades were also erected, according to the second police source.

There were no arrests.

Mayotte has been shaken for ten days by inter-village conflicts which left one dead on November 12, a 20-year-old young man killed with a machete, and several injured.

Kawéni, the village where the victim was from, caught fire last Wednesday and Thursday after the attack on a school bus.

Last week, a man armed with a machete severed the hand of his victim, still within a school bus.

"Ten Days of Hell"

The investigations into the events that took place last week are "in progress", indicated the public prosecutor Yann Le Bris, specifying that "at this stage, only a few minors have been arrested".

“It will be necessary to wait a few days before the police and gendarmerie services can arrest the perpetrators of the events of this weekend”, he underlined.

“We are facing an immense disarray.

We have just lived through ten days of hell.

Our children are attacked with machetes, our houses burned,” said Estelle Youssouffa, the MP for Mayotte.

“We demand a shock of sovereignty.

Prevention all that, bla-bla-bla.

We are in it, we want the army, the Raid, the GIGN, ”she added.

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  • Company

  • Mayotte

  • Raid

  • Ministry of Interior

  • Urban violence