France’s Macron visits cyclone-wrecked island as residents seek aid: ‘there is nothing’
At least 31 people have died and more than 1,500 people were injured, more than 200 critically
French President Emmanuel Macron arrived on Thursday in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte to survey Cyclone Chido’s destruction and was immediately confronted with a first-hand account of devastation across the French territory.
“Mayotte is demolished,” security agent Assane Haloi told Macron after he stepped off the plane.
Macron had been moving along in a line of people greeting him when Haloi grasped his hand and spoke for a minute about the harrowing conditions the islands faced without bare essentials since Saturday when the strongest cyclone in nearly a century ripped through the French territory off the coast of Africa.
“We are without water, without electricity, there is nowhere to go because everything is demolished,” she said. “We can’t even shelter, we are all wet with our children covering ourselves with whatever we have so that we can sleep.”
At least 31 people have died and more than 1,500 people were injured, more than 200 critically, French authorities said. But it’s feared hundreds or even thousands of people have died.
