Authorities impose overnight curfew in Mayotte as France rushes in aid

France said it will impose a nighttime curfew on the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte starting on the evening of Tuesday, December 17, after the French overseas territory was devastated by a cyclone feared to have killed hundreds.

The French military said it is sending four to five planes a day with up to 50 tons of assistance, including food, water and medicine. Hundreds of military personnel have arrived since the weekend in Mayotte, an island group off Africa that is France’s poorest territory.

The official death toll from Saturday’s cyclone rose to 22 according to the latest report from Mayotte Hospital quoted by Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, the mayor of the capital, Mamoudzou.

But after Cyclone Chido barrelled into the island and its surrounding archipelago, authorities fear that hundreds, and possibly even thousands, were killed, once the true scale of the toll is revealed after the rubble is cleared and roads unblocked.

“The toll is uncertain for the moment… the toll has yet to be established. The toll is, as of today, at more than 20 dead, 200 badly wounded and 1,500 wounded in a relative state of urgency,” Prime Minister François Bayrou had told parliament earlier on Tuesday before more deaths were confirmed. “This toll could rise. We all know this,” he added.

In a sign of the potential magnitude of the tragedy, the Red Cross said it feared more than 200 of its volunteers were missing. After hitting Mayotte, Cyclone Chido made landfall in Mozambique, claiming at least 34 lives and destroying 23,600 homes, authorities said.

The health services are in tatters, power and mobile phone services have been knocked out, the airport closed to civilian flights while there is mounting concern about how to ensure supplies of drinking water.

Cyclone Chido is the latest in a string of storms worldwide fuelled by climate change, according to experts. The curfew from 10 pm to 4 am local time (1900 GMT to 0100 GMT) is being put in place as a security measure to prevent looting, the French interior ministry said.

‘Completely devastated’

French President Emmanuel Macron, who chaired a crisis meeting on Monday night, has described the situation as a “tragedy.” Later on Tuesday, he said he would visit the territory on Thursday, cutting short a trip to Brussels to meet European Union leaders.

“Our compatriots are living through the worst just a few thousand kilometers away, and I will be by their side in a few hours in Mayotte,” Macron said in a statement.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who on Monday was the first top Paris official to visit the island after the cyclone, said that Mayotte has been “completely devastated,” with 70% of inhabitants affected. “The toll will be heavy, too heavy,” Retailleau warned.

He announced the arrival “in the coming days” of 400 additional gendarmes to reinforce the 1,600 gendarmes and police officers present on the archipelago, while specifying that there had “not really been any looting” so far. The “exceptional” cyclone was super-charged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, meteorologist François Gourand of the Météo-France weather service told AFP.

Mayotte is France’s poorest region, with an estimated one-third of the population living in shantytowns whose flimsy sheet metal-roofed homes offered scant protection against the storm. “We’re starting to run out of water. In the south, there’s been no running water for five days,” said Antoy Abdallah, a resident of Tsoundzou in the territory’s capital Mamoudzou. “We’re completely cut off from the world,” the 34-year-old lamented.

Most of Mayotte’s population is Muslim and religious tradition dictates bodies must be buried rapidly, meaning some may never be counted. Assessing the toll is further complicated by irregular immigration to Mayotte, especially from the Comoros islands to the north, meaning much of the population is not even registered.

Mayotte officially has 320,000 inhabitants but authorities estimate there could be 100,000 to 200,000 more people, taking into account illegal immigration. Ousseni Balahachi, a former nurse, said some people did not dare venture out to seek assistance, “fearing it would be a trap” designed to remove them from Mayotte. Many had stayed put “until the last minute” when it proved too late to escape the cyclone, she added.

Risk of epidemics

As for other worries, the head of the medical aid group Medecins du Monde (MDM) told The Associated Press he was concerned about the risk of a cholera epidemic in Mayotte. Earlier this year, the island was hit by an outbreak of a highly drug-resistant strain of the disease.

“Cholera is circulating,” MDM Director Jean-François Corty said in a phone interview from Paris. “It might turn into an epidemic if there is no way to ensure efficient access to water.”

Only six health centers out of 20 in Mayotte are still functioning, making it a challenge to handle not just those injured in the cyclone, but also regular emergencies and chronic diseases, Corty said.

Meanwhile, the government released an initial 655,000 euros ($687,000) to finance urgent needs on the island. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has pledged 250,000 euros ($262,000) from the city’s emergency fund for recovery efforts. Cyclone Chido is the deadliest storm to strike the territory in nearly a century, underscoring the vulnerability of the island’s impoverished population.

The cyclone is also threatening to escalate political tensions in France. Just days after taking office, Bayrou has faced criticism from across the political spectrum for his handling of the crisis. Critics have taken issue with Bayrou’s decision not to travel to Mayotte or attend a crisis meeting in person, choosing instead to chair a town hall in Pau, where he serves as mayor.

Bayrou responded by saying he participated in the crisis meeting via video and worked closely with Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who was on the ground in Mayotte. He explained that his focus has been on forming a new government. Bayrou also announced a call for innovative housing projects, seeking designs for “easy-to-assemble” and “affordable” structures to aid in reconstruction.

“French companies and architecture schools will undoubtedly contribute to reshaping Mayotte,” Bayrou said.

He dismissed calls to declare a state of emergency on the archipelago, suggesting instead that Mayotte use European Union recovery funds and national solidarity initiatives. He highlighted the temporary field hospital set up by the French army to prevent disease outbreaks as a key example of ongoing support.

“We rebuilt Notre Dame in five years,” Bayrou said. “We’ve got less time than that to restore normal living conditions in Mayotte.”