Clashes broke out between residents of the town and the police on February 26, 2021. -

Ali AL-DAHER / AFP

Clashes erupted between the Mayotte gendarmerie and residents of the town of Koungou on Friday, opposed to the destruction of a slum installed in an unstable area, said the town hall and the gendarmerie on Saturday.

The incidents, which mobilized 75 gendarmes, which continued into the night, but calm had returned, this Saturday morning, the authorities said.

Looted houses and racketed motorists

Young people set up roadblocks by setting fire to garbage cans and bulky items in the streets, extorting money from motorists.

Some houses in the housing estates near the town hall were looted, according to the gendarmerie, which added that they had arrested one of the thieves.

“The gendarmes intervened and fired around thirty tear gas canisters to disperse them.

But each time the gendarmes left after having calmed the area, other attackers returned to challenge them, ”explained the gendarmerie.

This violence began following a wave of arrests by the gendarmes in the informal district known as Jamaica, according to the town hall and the gendarmerie.

Housing without water or electricity

The town hall of Koungou is preparing the evacuation of a plot at the request of its owner, a trading company, where 200 tin huts are illegally installed, built on steep slopes, which have no running water or electricity and whose the majority of the inhabitants would be people in an irregular situation.

According to the social survey carried out with the services of the town hall, many young delinquents live there.

"They threatened us," said a city official on condition of anonymity.

While the rainy season is in full swing in Mayotte, the town hall wants to prevent a recurrence in this district of an accident like the one that cost the life in January 2018, to a mother and her four children whose tin hut had been swept away by a landslide.

In 2020, the security forces destroyed 161 illegally built huts, on the orders of the Mayotte prefecture.

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  • Slum

  • Mayotte

  • Clashes

  • Violence

  • Miscellaneous