The link had been interrupted at the end of April, while Paris is carrying out contested operations against illegal immigration in its Indian Ocean territory.
The Maria Galanta ferry resumed its rotations between the French department of Mayotte and the neighboring Comorian island of Anjouan on Wednesday, suspended since the end of April, while Paris carries out disputed operations against illegal immigration in its territory of the ocean. Indian.
The boat left the port of Dzaoudzi at 12:00 local time to arrive at the Comorian port of Mutsamudu around 4:00 p.m., AFP journalists noted. The two islands are only 70 km apart.
According to the “collective of citizens of Mayotte” supporting the Wuambushu operation and present at the departure of the ship, around twenty Comorians in an irregular situation embarked. The collective had threatened to block the departure if the Maria Galanta did not board Comorians in an irregular situation.
Showdown between Paris and the Comorian government
Contacted by our colleagues from AFP, the prefecture refused to comment on the figure. The Comorian government had warned Monday that it would only welcome Comorians in an irregular situation who volunteered to return to the country, after several weeks of a showdown with Paris over the issue of the return of undocumented migrants.
“I confirm the arrival of voluntary departures,” said government spokesman Houmed Msaidie. “There were only voluntary departures,” he insisted.
According to witnesses, all the passengers left the boat. The disembarked undocumented migrants were taken to another exit, out of sight of journalists, to leave the port.
Moroni unable to accommodate an influx of migrants
The Maria Galanta had not made a crossing since April 24, the Comoros having decreed the closure of the port of Mutsamudu.
Moroni said he was unable to accommodate an influx of migrants and called on France to abandon operation “Wuambushu” (resumption, in Mahoran), aimed at massively evicting Comorians in an illegal situation from the slums of Mayotte. .
The shipping company SGTM, which operates the rotations between the two archipelagos, had suspended the link “until further notice” given the “context”.
Geographically in the Comorian archipelago, Mayotte became a French department in 2011 but the Union of the Comoros refuses to recognize France’s sovereignty. Nearly half of the estimated 350,000 inhabitants of Mayotte do not have French nationality.
Many African migrants regularly perish in shipwrecks trying to reach the archipelago clandestinely, plagued by exploding crime.
