Court on France’s Mayotte island halts expulsion of irregular migrants

ANKARA (AA) — A local court on Mayotte, a French Indian Ocean island off East Africa, has intervened to suspend an operation to expel irregular migrants.

France had scheduled the operation, dubbed Wuambushu, for Tuesday morning to move the migrants about 65 kilometers northwest to Anjouan, the closest island of the nearby archipelago nation Comoros. Both are located between Mozambique and the larger island of Madagascar.

Comoros has reportedly refused to admit the expelled individuals.

The local administration said it would appeal the decision by the court in Mayotte’s largest city, Mamoudzou. Most of the migrants are from Comoros.

French Interior Ministry spokeswoman Camille Chaize said that the operation had begun and would continue, noting that 1,800 police officers had already been deployed on the island.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said: “This is an anti-delinquency and anti-slums operation … And there are irregular individuals.”

Estelle Youssouffa and Mansour Kamardine, French lawmakers for Mayotte, expressed their support for Operation Wuambushu on Monday.

“The slums are homes of insecurity, violence, hosting traffickers, and gangs who spread terror,” Youssouffa said.

Last November, Youssouffa accused the government of neglecting years of violence on the island as Mamoudzou faced an unprecedented rise in gang violence.

She asked Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne when she would deploy the navy “to defend the borders” of the archipelago.

“What do you intend to do to prevent a civil war on Mayotte?” she asked.