One year after Cyclone Chido struck Mayotte, a France Télévisions team returned to the island, which is now facing a very high level of insecurity. For many residents, daily life has become a source of anxiety due to gang violence.
On the heights of Mamoudzou, a neighbourhood lies abandoned, its houses deserted by residents traumatised by Cyclone Chido and the burglaries that have followed in its wake.
Behind his anti-intrusion fence, Nizar Hajar, a resident of Passamainty, has seen his neighbours gradually move away: ‘For example, this house has been emptied. Both of them are no longer inhabited because they’ve been burgled so many times…’
In July 2025, the house next door to his was attacked. The thieves tried to get in by digging a hole directly through the wall.
‘Basically, if the security guard hadn’t arrived in time, they would have taken a TV, a computer, phones and left,’ he says. The attack was filmed by residents.
The footage shows two hooded men armed with machetes. One stands guard while the other throws stones at the security guard who has just caught them. The assault takes place in broad daylight, under the gaze of stunned residents who call the police.
This is the tenth attack by men armed with machetes in the neighbourhood in two years.
Fearing the next intrusion, Nizar Hajar is gradually transforming his home into a small fortified camp: an alarm whistle on the balcony, cameras throughout the house, and increasingly, double-locked doors.
In Mayotte, burglaries have increased by 35% since Cyclone Chido. How can this increase be explained? Did the disaster have something to do with it? In Mamoudzou, the mayor, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, has his own theory.
He arranged to meet France Télévisions in what was, before the cyclone, his town’s video surveillance centre. For the past year, due to a lack of money to replace them, no cameras or control screens have been working in Mamoudzou.
These are valuable tools in the fight against crime. ‘We are blind because, in addition to the cameras, it is the radios that are more functional. Even the officers don’t have a place to work in good conditions,’ explains Ambdilwahedou Soumaila.
Without CCTV surveillance and with the reinforcements sent after the cyclone having been recalled to mainland France, the police are trying to maintain a presence on the ground.
The BAC (Anti Crime Brigade), in particular, is conducting a series of patrols, including in areas where it is least welcome: the shanty towns.
According to police officers interviewed by France Télévisions, it is in these neighbourhoods made of corrugated iron and populated by foreign communities that the members of the Mayotte gangs live.
Here, everyone sizes each other up. ‘In fact, we are constantly being watched. There are people there, and there are people a little higher up. There are codes,’ says one resident.
The tension quickly escalates. Back in the vehicle, the radio crackles, then the sound of an impact is heard. Young people are throwing stones at the police officers. These daily attacks are sometimes violent, as evidenced by the police car.
“The holes you see there are made by concrete reinforcing bars. These are rocks, stones, pretty much anything we can throw is thrown,” said one officer.
The young people fled. The police officers set off again as night fell. Very quickly, in the middle of the city, it became almost completely dark.
‘In this neighbourhood, there used to be lights almost everywhere. Now, since Chido, it’s completely dark,’ explained the officer.
In these conditions, it is very difficult to spot a crime in progress. Often, the police arrive after the theft has taken place.
‘They were throwing stones to scare people away. And when the security guard left, they took the cement that was there.’
Repeated thefts are committed mostly by young men, French or undocumented, often attracted to violence.
Kader, 23, who has served several prison sentences for burglary and assault, agreed to meet with the France Télévisions team. His parents are Comorian, and he was born in Mayotte. For young people like him, he says, violence is a way of life.
‘I’ve been to prison, and two of my friends are dead. They were killed. You’re violent because you don’t have enough to eat. And then you want to dress like everyone else, have the same trainers. But you don’t have a job, you’ve got nothing. So you feel compelled to steal, even if it’s not right,’ he confides.
Gang violence is increasingly exasperating the people of Mayotte, who are still suffering daily from the consequences of Cyclone Chido. A year after the disaster, reconstruction on the island has barely begun.
Source: Africanews
