French President Emmanuel Macron visits cyclone-hit Mayotte, meets with survivors to plead for help

Mamoudzou, Mayo – French President Emmanuel Macron traveled on Thursday to the island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean to inspect the destruction caused by Cyclone Chido across the territory of France while thousands of people were trying to cope without bare items such as water or electricity.

“Mayotte has been demolished,” an airport security agent told Macron as soon as he stepped off the plane.

Security guard Assane Haloi said her family members, including small children, are without water or electricity and have nowhere to go after the strongest cyclone in nearly a century tore through the French territory of Mayotte off the coast of Africa on Saturday.

“There is no roof, there is nothing. There is no water, no food, no electricity. We can't even take shelter, we are all wet with our children covering ourselves with whatever there is so we can sleep,” she said, asking for help urgently.

Macron received a helicopter tour of the damage and was to spend Thursday night on the vast territory of France. After flying over the devastation, he went to the hospital in Mamoudzou, the capital of Mayotte, to meet medical staff and patients.

Wearing a traditional Mayotte scarf over his white shirt and tie, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, the French president listened to people calling for help. A medical worker told him that some people had not been drinking water for 48 hours.

Some residents also expressed that they knew those who died or are still missing, partly because of the Muslim practice of burying the dead within 24 hours.

“We are dealing with mass graves outside,” Mayotte lawmaker Estelle Youssoufa told reporters. “There are no rescuers, no one came to retrieve the buried bodies.”

Some survivors and aid groups have described hasty burials and the stench of corpses.

Macron admitted that many deaths had not been reported. He said phone services will be repaired “in the coming days” so people can report missing loved ones.

French authorities have said that at least 31 people died and more than 1,500 were injured, more than 200 critically. But hundreds or even thousands of people are afraid of dying altogether.

Abdou Houmadou, 27, said immediate emergency aid was needed, not Macron's presence.

“Mr. President, what I would like to tell you… is that I think that the expenses you made from Paris to Mayotte would have been better spent helping the people ,” he said.

Another resident, Ahamadi Mohammed, said that Macron's visit is a good thing because he will be able to see the damage for himself.

“I think we will then receive considerable financial support to try to get the island back on its feet,” said the 58-year-old.

Macron's office said four tons of food and medical aid, as well as additional rescue workers, were on board the president's flight. A naval ship was expected to arrive in Mayotte on Thursday with another 180 tons of aid and equipment, according to the French military.

People living in a large slum on the outskirts of Mamoudzou were some of the hardest hit by the cyclone. Many lost their homes, some lost friends.

Nassirou Hamidouni took shelter in his house when the cyclone hit.

His neighbor was killed when his house collapsed on him and his six children. Hamidouni and others dug through the rubble to reach them.

The 28-year-old father of five is now trying to rebuild his own house, which was also destroyed.

He believes that the death toll is much higher than what is officially reported, given how badly he lived.

“It was very difficult,” he said.

Mayotte, located in the Indian Ocean between the east coast of mainland Africa and the north of Madagascar, is the poorest region in France.

The cyclone destroyed all the neighborhoods and many people did not notice the warnings, thinking that the storm would not be so terrible.

Mayotte has over 320,000 inhabitants according to the French government. Most of them are Muslim authorities and France has estimated that another 100,000 migrants live there.

Mayotte is the only part of the Comoros Islands that voted to remain part of France in a referendum in 1974.

Over the last decade, French territory has seen a large influx of migrants from the neighboring islands – the independent country of Comoros, which is one of the poorest countries in the world .