UPDATE 1-Mayotte authorities fear hunger and disease; race to help cyclone survivors

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Authorities prioritize food, water, and preventing disease spread

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Curfew imposed; Macron plans visit to assess damage

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Cyclone highlights immigration issues and government neglect debate

(Adds food and water supplies due on Tuesday, paragraph 6 curfew, paragraph 7, Mayotte lawmaker comment, paragraph 10, immigration debate, paragraphs 13-21)

By Jean-Stéphane Brosse and Abdou Moustoifa

PARIS/MORONI, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Authorities in Mayotte were racing on Tuesday to get food and water to residents stricken by the weekend’s devastating cyclone and fighting to stop hunger, disease and lawlessness spreading in the French overseas territory, officials said.

Hundreds or even thousands could be dead in the wreckage of Cyclone Chido, they said. The storm laid waste to large parts of the archipelago off east Africa, which is France’s poorest overseas territory and a major destination for illegal immigration.

With many areas still inaccessible, it could take days to determine the full extent of damage and deaths. So far, 22 deaths and more than 1,400 injuries have been confirmed, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, the mayor of the capital Mamoudzou, told Radio France Internationale on Tuesday morning.

“The priority today is water and food,” Soumaila said. “There are people who have unfortunately died where the bodies are starting to decompose that can create a sanitary problem.”

“We don’t have electricity. When night falls, there are people who take advantage of that situation.”

Twenty tonnes of food and water are due to start arriving on Tuesday by air and sea, the government said late on Monday. It added that 50% of water supplies would be restored within 48 hours and 95% within the week.

France’s interior ministry announced that a curfew would go into effect on Tuesday night from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. local time.

Rescue workers have been searching for survivors amid the debris of shantytowns that were bowled over by 200 kph (124 mph) winds. Chido was the strongest storm to strike Mayotte in more than 90 years, French weather service Meteo France said.

Several people have been rescued in Mamoudzou, Sitti-Rouzat Soilhi, a communications officer for the city government, told Reuters, adding that more than 700 security personnel had been mobilised to aid residents and reinforce security.

Estelle Youssouffa, a lawmaker from Mayotte, told France Inter radio that an eerie silence had fallen over Mayotte, with even the Muslim call to prayer failing to ring out from damaged mosques. She said many schools had been destroyed and others were being used as shelters.

French President Emmanuel Macron said after an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday evening that he would visit Mayotte in the coming days.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Mayotte has been grappling with unrest in recent years, with many residents angry at illegal immigration and inflation.

More than three-quarters of its roughly 321,000 people live in relative poverty, and about one-third are estimated to be undocumented migrants, most from nearby Comoros and Madagascar.

The territory has become a stronghold for the far-right National Rally with 60% voting for Marine Le Pen in the 2022 presidential election runoff.

France’s acting Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said in a news conference in Mayotte that the early warning system had worked “perfectly” but that many of the undocumented had not come to designated shelters.

Other officials have said undocumented migrants may have been afraid to go to shelters for fear of being arrested.

The toll of the cyclone, Retailleau said in a subsequent post on X, underscored the need to address “the migration question”.

“Mayotte is the symbol of the drift that governments have allowed to take hold on this issue,” he said. “We will need to legislate so that in Mayotte, like everywhere else on the national territory, France retakes control of its immigration.”

Left-wing politicians, however, have pointed the finger at what they say is the government’s neglect of Mayotte and failure to prepare for natural disasters linked to climate change.

“A cyclone, fuelled by climate change, struck an abandoned French territory. Hundreds, even thousands of deaths are expected. And you write that Mayotte’s problem is…immigration. Disgusting,” Melanie Vogel, a senator from the Europe Ecology party, wrote in response to Retailleau’s X post. (Reporting by Jean-Stephane Brosse and Makini Brice in Paris, Abdou Moustoifa in Moroni; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, William Maclean)

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