The migrant camp at the Cavani stadium in Mayotte, which crystallized tensions on the French island in the Indian Ocean, has been completely evacuated, the prefecture and the Minister for Overseas Affairs, Marie Guévenoux, announced on Friday March 22. .
“The dismantling of the illegal Cavani camp is complete. All tents were removed today,” the prefecture said in a statement on Facebook, adding that vulnerable people, “notably women with children, were accommodated in accordance with the commitments made.”
“No illegal habitat should be reconstituted,” added the prefecture, which published photos of what the old camp was like, littered with debris and blue tarpaulins which served as roofs for the hastily installed huts. “The dismantling of the Cavani camp was a priority to bring lasting calm and social peace to Mayotte,” the delegate minister said on X.
First announced by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, in mid-January, the dismantling of this camp, in which up to 700 migrants lived, most of them from Great Lakes Africa or Somalia, will have taken two months.
Subject to high tensions, this camp installed in the center of Mamoudzou was the starting point of the protest movement which paralyzed the 101st French department for more than a month, from the end of January to the beginning of March.
