Kahani (France) (AFP)

"How do you want us to stay with us? It's the furnace inside!". In the shade of a large mango tree, Nemati Houmadi chats with her neighbors, enjoying a light wind that cools the air in the Karidjavendza slum, in Mayotte.

It is 10:00 am, and confinement to fight against the coronavirus is not in order in this gathering of sheet metal huts located in Kahani, in the center of Mayotte, and whose name means "We refuse" in Grand-Comorian, language spoken in the largest island of the Comoros archipelago.

In this French department of the Indian Ocean, the last assessment reports 184 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and two deaths.

In the slum, there is no running water or electricity. The alleys are on clay. And the majority of the large thousand inhabitants who live there are Comorian citizens in an irregular situation in Mayotte.

The daily outside temperature is around 30 to 32 ° C, but rather 40 to 45 ° C inside the boxes. "We have neither fan nor air conditioner," said Namati Houmadi, aged about fifty and mother of four children from 12 to 20 years old: "Outside, we can at least breathe!".

In this slum installed on communal land, the rules of social distancing are not the priority of the inhabitants. The main concern here is water. A rechargeable card standpipe was installed about ten years ago. But today it is problematic.

"Already, it only works for a few hours. Not everyone can fill their cans, we have to go and fight with the inhabitants of Komprani (another slum of Kahani, note) at their terminal. Then, our terminal is too close from the road, children were hit by cars, "grumbles Nemati Houmadi.

And "at the moment, it is difficult for us to reload our cards. The only point of sale is in Kawéni (25 km) and with confinement, it is difficult to circulate to go there", adds his neighbor Ibrahim Ousseni Abdallah.

- river and rainwater -

For the NGO Médecin du Monde, water points are an "unsuitable response (which) is neither desirable from a health point of view - by creating gatherings - nor sufficient from a humanitarian point of view".

Difficult in this situation to follow the recommendations to wash your hands regularly to protect yourself from coronavirus. "When you don't have water, you don't wash your hands," summed up fatalist MLA LR de Mayotte Mansour Kamardine, who has been warning about the situation for several weeks.

As for hydroalcoholic gel, a rare commodity, buying it is not the priority of the population, 82% of whom live below the poverty line.

the authorities fear above all the contamination of these slums, where the promiscuity is very strong. In Mayotte, 40% of the dwellings are made of sheet metal and a third have no access to running water.

To get water, the inhabitants rely on the solidarity of the neighborhood. Those who can reload their card lend them to the neighbors. Laundry and swimming are done in the bed of small streams. Plastic cisterns and tanks are used to collect rainwater. But soon this will no longer be possible. The dry season is approaching, rainfall will be scarce and these rivers will be dry.

The residents asked the mayor of Ouangani to install other fire hydrants in the neighborhood. But this is not envisaged, because the municipality wants to develop an area of ​​economic activity there. "The inhabitants squat this land. Nobody told them to settle there. There is a household waste transfer quay nearby, there should be no homes within 200 m. At the time, when the first were established there, we installed the fountain, that was enough for everyone ", justifies the first deputy mayor Dahalani Hamada.

The inhabitants of Karidjavendza consider that they are considered "like animals" by the municipality. "Even if we are foreigners, even if many are undocumented, there is not a house where there is no French citizen inside. No one thinks of us," sighs Kadafi, 33 , arrived in Mayotte at the age of 10 and having suffered seven refusals to regularize.

© 2020 AFP