In mid-December, Cyclone Chido devastated the French overseas department of Mayotte, located in the northern part of the Mozambique Channel in the western Indian Ocean off the coast of south-east Africa. Weeks later, water is still a desperate need for people on the island.
Undrinkable or contaminated water, hours of waiting: the water distribution system has been described as ‘catastrophic’ by the Association ‘Mayotte a soif’ (Mayotte is thirsty). Contrary to the claims of the French Minister of the Interior, it is “not true” that 100% of the population of Mayotte is connected to running water”, according to the president of the association.
The water supply situation in Mayotte is ‘catastrophic’, Racha Mousdikoudine, president of the ‘Mayotte à soif’ Association, complained to franceinfo on Friday 3 January. “People are queuing for hours in 40-degree weather to go home empty-handed”, she said. This is unthinkable in a French department:
“The water crisis has never been managed effectively in normal times, and it’s not when Chido has destroyed everything in the area that we’re going to miraculously get water.”
The president of the association said that the reports she had received were of ‘people drinking infected river water’. “There’s no drinking water”, she repeats, “and even when it does come out of the tap, it’s undrinkable.”
She would like the ARS to provide “free potability tablets to the population” to compensate for the fact that the authorities ask people to boil water when it is dirty, “but a bottle of gas costs 23 euros”, Racha Mousdikoudine stresses, before adding: “In Mayotte, there are four or five people in a family, just imagine.”