Cavani camp: a new illegal immigration channel in Mayotte

William Molinié // Credits: MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP 6:20 a.m., February 12, 2024

The Cavani stadium camp in Mamoudzou is in the sights of the authorities. Gabriel Attal ordered the acceleration of its dismantling last week. Around 700 asylum seekers live in this camp. The profiles of migrants from the Cavani camp reveal a new illegal immigration network. They are not Comorians, coming from the archipelago 80 kilometers north of Mayotte, but illegal immigrants from the African continent.

The inhabitants of the Cavani camp are Congolese, Rwandans and even Somalis, who left Tanzania on board boats then transferred off the coast of the archipelago on small makeshift boats called kwassa-kwassa. These same fishing boats usually make crossings between the Comoros and the French department.

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 Gérald Darmanin's trip to Mayotte: an archipelago plunged into a quasi-insurrectional situation

Obtain protection from France 

These new migrants have mostly applied for asylum, because they claim to have gone to Mayotte to flee the war in their countries. Consequently, they have a good chance of obtaining protection from France. An unbearable situation for the Mahorais already overwhelmed by uncontrolled immigration. To mark their discontent, citizen groups erected roadblocks throughout the French department. 

A crisis situation, which pushed the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, to go to Mayotte to propose solutions to get out of this crisis. The resident of Place Beauvau announced “the end of land rights” in the archipelago. He also returned to the question of family reunification, which will be "divided by five", and announced the end of territorialized visas to fight against illegal immigration. Nearly half of the population living in Mayotte today is foreign and irregular.