As the first shantytown falls to the bulldozer under France’s operation ‘take back’, people on the Indian Ocean island tell of living in constant fear
It took less than 24 hours to raze the shantytown of Talus 2 on the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte. France’s Operation Wuambushu (“take back”) began on Monday last week in its overseas territory, between Madagascar and Mozambique, with a dozen excavators and trucks carrying police officers. By Tuesday 23 May, most of the neighbourhood’s 162 informal homes had been destroyed, leaving hundreds of people without shelter.
Details of the operation were revealed in February as President Emmanuel Macron approved sending 510 additional French police officers to Mayotte with the aim of fighting “gangs, substandard housing and irregular immigration”.
