Mayotte: Comoros limits reception to passengers with papers

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Ibrahim YOUSSOUF / AFP 16:13 p.m., April 27, 2023

Comorian port authorities announced Thursday that boats from the neighboring French department of Mayotte are again allowed to dock, after a suspension of a few days, and Comorians allowed to disembark provided they hold an identity document. For several days, the French authorities have deployed significant logistical and human resources to dislodge illegal migrants from the slums of Mayotte as part of a controversial operation called "Wuambushu" ("recovery" in Mahorais).

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1,800 police and gendarmes are mobilized

Some 1,800 police and gendarmes are mobilized, including hundreds of reinforcements from mainland France. Comorians in an irregular situation, the vast majority of undocumented migrants in the French archipelago in the Indian Ocean, must be sent back to the nearest Comorian island, Anjouan, just 70 km away. But a standoff has been underway since Monday between the French and Comorian authorities, Moroni having refused the berthing of a boat from Mayotte carrying 60 migrants and suspended passenger traffic in the port of Mutsamudu (Anjouan, northwest) where deportees are usually disembarked.

The country's ports are now "able to accommodate Comorian passengers and other nationalities," Mohamed Salim Dahalani, director of port authorities, said Thursday at a press conference at the port of Mutsamudu. But "will disembark tomorrow only passengers who will be provided with their national identity card," he said. Many migrants dispose of their papers once they arrive on foreign soil, in order to avoid their return to their country of origin or try to pose as minors.

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Moroni has multiplied calls for Paris to cancel the "Wuambushu" operation

In recent weeks, Moroni has multiplied calls for Paris to cancel the "Wuambushu" operation set up by French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, explaining that he does not have the means to accommodate an influx of migrants. Comorian President Azali Assoumani, who has been president 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 committed in an agreement signed in 2019 to "cooperate" with Paris on immigration issues in exchange for €150 million in development aid. "The Union of the Comoros does not have to pay for the consequences of an uncoordinated Wuambushu operation," government spokesman Houmed Msaidie told AFP by phone on Thursday. According to him, passenger traffic between the Comoros and Mayotte must resume because "more than 250 regular passengers are waiting in the islands". But "no returnee has the right to be embarked" under penalty for the shipping company "to have its license revoked, he said.

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The Union of the Comoros still refuses to recognize the sovereignty of the France.

Geographically belonging to the Comorian archipelago, Mayotte, located between Madagascar and the East African coast, separated from the Comoros in 1974 after a referendum in which the other three islands chose independence. It became a French department in 2011 but the Union of the Comoros still refuses to recognize the sovereignty of the France.

Many African migrants regularly die in shipwrecks trying to reach Mayotte illegally aboard small motorized fishing boats called kwassa kwassa. According to the French National Institute of Statistics (INSEE), nearly half of Mayotte's 350,000 inhabitants do not have French nationality.