Gang violence: For months there have been riots in Mayotte, like here in early November.
Image: Picture Alliance
Mayotte is off the coast of East Africa but belongs to France. Illegal immigration and gang violence plague the island.
Mayotte is an island that, like Helgoland or Mallorca, belongs to the EU. Only the 101st French department is located 8000 kilometers from Paris in the Indian Ocean, between the coast of Mozambique and Madagascar. MP Mansour Kamardine rarely manages to draw attention to his homeland. But these days, the 63-year-old right-wing politician is a sought-after voice, because violent riots between gangster gangs are shaking the European spot off the African coast.
“We live like in an open-air prison. The criminals roam free, while the honest citizens have to lock themselves behind high walls,” says Kamardine of the FAZ. Many citizens don’t dare to go out on the street after dark. He tells of highwaymen attacking cars on the main thoroughfares at night, of criminal gangs attacking school buses with machetes in broad daylight. “The situation is out of control,” says the deputy. He compares his homeland to a pressure cooker “that heats up and heats up and now explodes”.