Theater for several days of violence between young people from rival neighborhoods caused by the murder of one of them, the department of Mayotte is counting on the arrival of police reinforcements to try to stem the phenomenon after a day punctuated by sporadic unrest. .
Mamoudzou, the largest city on the island of Mayotte, a French department in the Indian Ocean, has been shaken for ten days by inter-district conflicts which left one dead on November 12, a 20-year-old young man killed in the machete and several wounded.
The Kawéni district, where the victim was from, caught fire in the middle of last week after the attack on a school bus. On Saturday, 200 to 250 young people from this district gathered to do battle with those from the Doujani district, further south, according to the police. On Sunday, a motorist was stabbed in Mtsapéré Bonovo, another district of Mamoudzou, according to a police source.
The deputy of Mayotte Estelle Youssouffa (Liot) launched Tuesday a ” cry of distress ” on the ” vendetta cycle “, of “ barbarism and terror on the island in “ general indifference ” in Paris. ” We are talking about hordes of hundreds of young people, most of them irregular Comorians who are between twelve and thirteen years old, armed with machetes and who sow death “, she said. ” We wonder when is enough is too much? What is the life worth of our children who have been going to school with fear in their stomachs for months? “.
A dozen Raid police officers expected on site
Faced with this escalation, the Ministry of the Interior announced on Monday the dispatch of a dozen police officers from the Raid, the elite intervention unit of the police, who arrived in Mayotte on Tuesday to reinforce the forces of the order.
Questioned by Mrs Youssouffa, the Minister of the Interior and Overseas Gérald Darmanin declared this Tuesday before the Assembly that “ the Mahorais who have chosen to remain in the Republic (…) need state protection “, adding that the government had” several paths of development ” as ” the very significant strengthening of the means of justice ” to answer ” at the rendezvous of the arrests which are numerous “.
On the military side, Gérald Darmanin assured that he was working with the Minister of the Armed Forces to add, during the development of the military programming law, a particular chapter ” for French Guiana and for Mayotte, to reinforce the military means “.
The Minister also mentioned, without specifying a date, the launch of an operation ” large scope ” for “ put an end to “banga” (informal sheet metal huts) on part of Mayotte territory “, without specifying when. ” We will send a lot of mobile gendarmes and state resources to effectively reverse the curve of violence and allow young Mahorais to go to class normally “, he added.
(With AFP)