France honored the Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte, devastated by a violent cyclone, on December 14 with a national day of mourning. On Monday (23) morning, a minute of silence was held for the dozens of residents killed by the storm.
Cyclone Chido was the worst storm to hit Mayotte’s two main islands in 90 years, and authorities said perhaps thousands of people may have been killed, although the official government toll is 35 dead.
To pay tribute to Mayotte’s losses, French flags were lowered to half-mast. Separately, flags were flown at half-mast in Brussels and Strasbourg, both in solidarity with Mayotte and following the attacks at a Christmas market in Germany and a school in Croatia.
“It is a communion in mourning,” French Prime Minister François Bayrou told reporters. He stated that the day showed solidarity with the residents of Mayotte and that France was “present to rebuild Mayotte and ensure that the people of Mayotte feel supported by the entire country.”
After the storm, authorities said the bodies may have been buried quickly, out of religious custom, before being counted, and that many of the victims may have been undocumented immigrants.
Mozambique reported that 94 people died in the disaster, while 13 died in neighboring Malawi, also after Cyclone Chido hit.
Anger
The slow pace of aid and delays in the arrival of drinking water have angered residents of Mayotte, France’s poorest overseas territory, located between Madagascar and Mozambique, about eight thousand kilometers from the mainland. Some insulted President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to the island last week.
For Mohamed Abdou, a doctor in Pamandzi, a region of Mayotte, the French day of mourning was a political move and did not do enough to recognize the historical neglect up to this point.
“Whether it’s in terms of hospitals, lack of water infrastructure, electricity, and so on… at this point, we need to say ‘mea culpa’ and recognize that mistakes were made,” he told Reuters, speaking from his town in the south of the island. minor of Mayotte.
François-Noël Buffet, France’s acting minister for overseas territories, told a broadcaster that water – a critical point even before the disaster – had reached the island, saying: “We are not without water. We have water, mostly bottled water. We have a distribution problem.”
Buffet said he expected a special law for the reconstruction of Mayotte to be introduced in early January.
In Paris, Bayrou, France’s fourth prime minister this year, was expected to announce his cabinet on Monday night, although the timing was still uncertain. The French presidency said the announcement would only take place at the end of the day of mourning.
This content was originally published in France on a day of mourning for the islands of Mayotte devastated by a cyclone on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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