Emmanuel Macron To Travel to Mayotte to Inspect the Damage Caused by Cyclone Chido
Destruction caused by Cyclone Chido in Mayotte, Dec. 2024. X/ @TURKIANTAR1984
December 17, 2024 Hour: 1:15 pm
Winds of up to 220 km/h have devastated this French overseas territory.
On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he would travel to the Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte and praised “the responsiveness of all state services” in addressing the disaster caused by Cyclone Chido.
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“Our compatriots are experiencing the worst just a few thousand kilometers from here, and I will be with them in a few hours,” Macron said during the inauguration speech of the World Health Organization (WHO) training center in Lyon.
“I also commend the responsiveness of all state services and territorial forces who are supporting the population. We have mobilized significant resources,” he stated.
In Mayotte, the death toll is rising slowly, with 21 confirmed fatalities and 45 seriously injured. However, estimates suggest that the number of deaths could reach at least hundreds. Electricity, land and air communications, and internet services are barely functioning.
The French government, which plans to deploy 800 rescue and security personnel by tomorrow, has imposed a curfew from 10:00 PM to 4:00 AM to prevent looting in the islands, which are France’s poorest department. The military is delivering humanitarian aid using large cargo planes from both mainland France and the nearby Reunion, an island that is also under French sovereignty.
On Tuesday, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) expressed concern over the fate of more than 200 of its volunteers feared missing on Mayotte.
IFRC spokesman Tommaso Della Longa expressed deep concern over the large number of people still unaccounted for following Cyclone Chido’s devastation of Mayotte.
He mentioned that French Red Cross teams had already been deployed, along with humanitarian aid, in preparation for the disaster, arriving on the islands the week before the cyclone made landfall.
Located in the northern Mozambique Channel of the Indian Ocean, Mayotte is an overseas department and region and single territorial collectivity of France. It lies off the southeastern coast of Africa between northwestern Madagascar and northeastern Mozambique.
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE- Xinhua