Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Shirley Sipon is joining me here on set from our international affairs desk.
00:03Shirley, what's the latest information then that we're getting about the situation in
00:06May of the scale really of the destruction?
00:09Well, it's still uncertain because yesterday morning we heard of 14 people who have died.
00:14That was the death toll.
00:15And since then we saw the devastation.
00:18And we know that a third of the archipelago's homes were destroyed, completely flattened,
00:24others yet destroyed and damaged, seriously damaged.
00:27And what the local prefect was saying is that hundreds of people are likely dead.
00:33And that number actually could reach 1,000 and even the thousands.
00:38But today, this morning, a government minister said the French government doesn't want to
00:42bring any figures because we don't really know.
00:46Many people are unaccounted for.
00:48But yes, the situation is terrible.
00:51Witnesses talk about apocalyptic scenes, this devastation, people completely lost, lost
00:57everything, roads unaccessible, blocked with trees.
01:01Yes, we've seen that is really terrible.
01:03We can see the map to understand the isolation of Mayotte, because now that aid needs to
01:10be brought in, well, it needs to be brought in from La Réunion Island on the other side.
01:15So Mayotte is on one side of Madagascar, La Réunion on the other.
01:19That shows the isolation of Mayotte from other French territories and why also it's the
01:26rescue will take time and is complicated to organise.
01:29Yeah, I mean, the island already known for lacking infrastructure as well and France's
01:34highest poverty rate.
01:35And there are also lots of people living there clandestinely.
01:38Yes, up to 100,000 people who don't have their documents and even if they need help,
01:46they are not shouting out for help for authorities because they don't want authorities to
01:50know they're there in case they will have to be deported out of France.
01:54So, yes, many people in need of help.
01:56So you've talked about the situation there.
01:58We can look at some facts, 320,000 people in Mayotte and many, many more people, perhaps
02:06up until 100,000.
02:07That's the maximum figure, who are undocumented.
02:11And nobody knows that the authorities don't consider that they're there and they don't
02:15have any information. And the poverty rate, 75 percent of the people in Mayotte live
02:21below the national poverty line and the unemployment rate, 37 percent.
02:25But that does not mean that 60, more than 60 percent of the population works.
02:30Now, about 30 percent of the people in the age of working are working, have a job in
02:36Mayotte. So situation extremely complicated.
02:38And we can see this yet again with another graph, which shows all of the French
02:44departments, these administrative departments.
02:46And you can see just a few of them with Paris.
02:49This is the average annual income.
02:51And you can see that overseas territories are much lower than the rest of the
02:56departments, the rest of the country.
02:57And Mayotte is at the bottom, the last one by far from even all of the other overseas
03:04territories, the situation extremely dire.
03:07And we can also see a graphic, which also explains the difficulties of the people in
03:12Mayotte, because, well, on the left, you have the whole of France, where 92 percent of
03:17the people have French citizenship.
03:19In Mayotte, half of them don't.
03:21Many live hidden.
03:24So they have many, many difficulties.
03:26This shows all the struggles.
03:28And, of course, for years, the people in Mayotte have been protesting for better
03:33infrastructure, for a situation that's improved.
03:36And actually, my colleague just showed me a report from May of this year where the
03:41parliament had this commission looking into what would happen if a natural
03:45catastrophe hit Mayotte and other overseas territories.
03:49And the report says it would be a catastrophe.
03:52It cannot be managed in the current situation if it's hit by a cyclone.
03:57And if it is hit, then it's going to be tragedy.
03:59So that's basically everyone knew that if this happened, the result would be
04:04catastrophic. It cannot be managed.
04:06But I suppose now it has to be managed.
04:07What about aid then?
04:09They've got to get that aid in there.
04:11But the airport's been damaged, hasn't it?
04:13Aid's slowly starting to arrive.
04:15What are the main challenges?
04:16Yes, you talked about the airport and again, the isolation.
04:20So everything comes from La Réunion Island and sometimes from mainland France to
04:26La Réunion and then to Mayotte because the airport is small and damaged in Mayotte.
04:30We can see these images of the firefighters who arrived there yesterday, figures
04:36that are quite low for now because the figures that were given are just just 162
04:42firefighters and rescuers for such huge devastation.
04:45But of course, more is coming, more people and 20 tons of aid are expected there.
04:52Rescue efforts by the air, also by sea.
04:57There is a French ship there which functions in that area, which will bring more
05:01aid. But some people are trying to reassure the population.
05:04A lot of stores have been damaged, but big supermarkets, there's one chain who says
05:09don't worry, we have supermarkets across the archipelago and we have enough water,
05:16enough food. We just need to distribute this quietly.
05:20They're having an emergency meeting today and basically saying don't panic, don't
05:26loot because there's been some looting.
05:29But the situation, of course, is concerning for people who are isolated and want
05:33water. There's a real shortage in that.
05:36Yeah, terrible situation there in Mayotte, Shirley.
05:38Thanks so much, Shirley Sipon from our international affairs desk here on France 24,
05:41summing up the latest for us.