"As long as the French side decides to do things unilaterally, we will take our responsibilities. No one deportee will enter a port under Comorian sovereignty," Comorian Interior Minister Fakridine Mahmoud said Monday (April 24th), as French authorities announced an operation against illegal immigration on the neighboring island of Mayotte. The Comoros has refused to dock a boat carrying migrants from Mayotte, and suspended passenger traffic in the port where Comorian expellees are usually disembarked.

"The port of Mutsamudu (on the Comorian island of Anjouan) is not able to operate on the embarkation and disembarkation of passengers from today until April 26, 2023, when we will inform you of the possible resumption of operations," the maritime services announced in a note addressed to a shipping company.

For his part, the prefect of Mayotte assured that the France would not stop the operation "Wuambushu" launched in the name of the fight against delinquency and slums. "The operations (...) to fight against delinquency and against unhealthy housing, with their consequences on illegal immigration, we will not stop them, "said Thierry Suquet.

The France plans to dislodge illegal migrants from the slums of the French department of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean, and to expel Comorians illegally present in the territory to the nearest Comorian island, Anjouan, located just 70 km away.

" READ ALSO Operation "Wuambushu" in Mayotte: evictions in preparation in a slum

Some 1,800 police and gendarmes mobilized

Some 1,800 police and gendarmes are already in Mayotte for the operation called "Wuambushu" ("recapture", in Mahorais) of the French Minister of the Interior and Overseas, Gérald Darmanin.

Comoros said last week it had no intention of "taking in deportees from the operation." Moroni has multiplied calls in Paris to cancel the operation, saying he does not have the means to accommodate an influx of migrants. And intense negotiations in recent weeks had raised the possibility of a last-minute agreement.

Comorian President Azali Assoumani, who has held the presidency of the African Union since February, said he hoped "that the operation will be cancelled", acknowledging "not having the means to stop (it) by force".

Comoros has committed, in an agreement signed in 2019, to "cooperate" with Paris on immigration issues in exchange for development aid of 150 million euros.

Many African migrants, especially Comorians, regularly die in shipwrecks while trying every year to reach Mayotte illegally, especially aboard small motor fishing boats called "kwassa kwassa".

Located between Madagascar and the East African coast and geographically part of the Comorian archipelago, Mayotte separated from the Comoros in 1974 in a referendum where the other three islands chose independence. It became a French department in 2011 and the Union of the Comoros still refuses to recognize the sovereignty of the France.

According to the French National Institute of Statistics (INSEE), nearly half of Mayotte's 350,000 inhabitants do not have French nationality, but a third of the island's foreigners were born there.

With AFP

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