Mayotte: survivors describe cyclone horror

The night Cyclone Chido hit the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, Zinedine was at home, a small house made of corrugated iron and wood where he lives with eight of his relatives.

Zinedine had received a warning from the authorities about the cyclone, but he did not take it too seriously.

“I thought it was like in previous years when they warned that a cyclone was coming but that it would only rain a little. So we stayed home.”

This time, however, the island was nearly hit by winds of more than 200 km/h (124 mph), the strongest cyclone to hit the island in almost a century.

So far 31 people are known to have died, according to French officials, and thousands more are feared missing.

When another, more urgent cyclone warning came, Zinedine sprang into action.

“I told my mom it’s never happened before that they sent a message like this, so I think it’s serious this time.”

He suggested they go to his neighbors’ house, a brick-and-mortar house not far from his own, in a poor neighborhood high in the hills of Mayotte’s Petite Terre, the smaller of his two islands.

But his mother didn’t want to go and he felt like he had to stay home with his family. The 20-year-old tourism student is the oldest in his family and feels responsible for them.

When the storm began, he and his mother hid his younger siblings under a table. Then there was a loud noise.

“The iron roof of our house flew off. We panicked and sought shelter. There were iron sheets, wood and other large objects flying everywhere.”

He took his brothers to the neighbor’s cabin when he turned around and noticed that his mother had not followed him.

“I decided to go out again to look for my mother even though it was dangerous with the wind and everything. I would rather die than let my mother die.”

His mother was in the middle of the damaged house holding a one-year-old baby. She was terrified and wouldn’t let the baby go. Zinedine snatched it from his arms and ran to give it to the neighbors. In the end he had to take his mother out of the house.

“Fortunately we are all safe, but we have lost everything. The only thing we were able to save were our papers and diplomas.”

Now he is trying to rebuild his family’s home. Finding new building materials is incredibly difficult in Mayotte right now due to high demand, and he couldn’t afford a new roof for his house, so he located some of the corrugated iron sheets that were torn off by the storm and plans to rebuild them. . use them.

“I’m trying to do what I can. Although I’m not a builder, I want to do it myself because I don’t know if the authorities will help us.”

Across Mayotte, others like Zinedine are trying to do the same, while the sound of hammers rings out late into the night.

But as resourceful as Mayotte residents are, they are also angry at the lack of support they say they have received from the government.

During French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the islands on Thursday, They booed him while he was trying to give a speech. While visiting a hospital, frustrated staff complained of being overwhelmed.

Most of the people we spoke to when we were in Mayotte had not yet received state aid, five days after the cyclone.

“We have only received donations of food from volunteers who have also given us clothing and water. The mayor’s office tried to help a little, but that’s all,” says Yasmine Moussa, 18 years old and mother of three children.

She took her three children, the youngest of whom is only three months old, to the nearest shelter, a high school in the Labattoir neighborhood, shortly after receiving the storm warning Friday afternoon.

“On the day of the cyclone, my children were crying because of the noise. When we looked outside we saw corrugated metal roofs flying everywhere. They asked me what was happening, why everything was breaking,” he said.

“I told them it was just wind and rain, but the next day they saw that everything was destroyed. They couldn’t sleep that night.”

When he returned home, he could barely recognize his own neighborhood.

“The mango trees had fallen during the storm and were blocking the roads. My neighbor had to point me to my house because I couldn’t even see it. There was water everywhere, the toilet was broken, my TV, everything was ruined. I tried to save it. that I could

“I was crying, I never imagined this would happen.”

Now he has nowhere to go. She says the conditions at the shelter are decent but she needs a house to take her children. Now they sleep on mattresses in one of the school’s classrooms with a dozen other families.

“It’s not normal to sleep like this. The doors don’t close and sometimes strangers come in. I worry about the safety of my children and that they will try to rob us.”

The Red Cross told the BBC that there are at least 100,000 people in shelters around Mayotte.

President Macron has promised compensation for the uninsured, who make up the majority of the population, but has not said how much they will receive.

The needs are enormous: almost all the islands must be rebuilt. But some on the political right in France argue that spending too much money in Mayotte will only encourage more undocumented immigrants to come to French territory.

Back at La Vigie, Zinedine says he understands their objections but disagrees.

“We’re human at the end of the day. And we need help.”