Within the Tsoundzou mangrove, south of Mamudzu, a number of hundred asylum seekers, a lot of them from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia or Yemen, reside in makeshift shelters. Excluding the political and humanitarian disaster, these days within the highlight of the evacuation of a few citizens, this camp sheds gentle at the transformations of migration to Mayotte and the mechanisms during which new figures of otherness are built, word researchers Alice Corbett and Anthony Goreau-Ponsot, who visited the website online in Would possibly and June.
Once we discuss migration in Mayotte, the a hundred and first French branch situated within the Indian Ocean, maximum eyes flip to the neighboring Chamber. The query of migration within the archipelago is in truth very a lot related to the continued debates about immigration from the Comoros, illustrated via the crossings from the island of Anjouan, essentially the most populated within the archipelago and closest to Mayotte, in kwassa-kwassa, gentle motor boats.
Then again, some other migration fact has been regularly rising for a number of years. Males, girls and households from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Somalia, Tanzania or even Yemen are actually achieving Mayotte after a adventure that on occasion spans a number of thousand kilometers throughout East Africa and the Indian Ocean. Whilst in 2021 the Comoros nonetheless represented 78% of latest registrations below the First Construction for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (SPADA), their proportion is hastily declining because of the rise in arrivals of asylum seekers from those other international locations, drawing the contours of a brand new migration direction.
In 2022, Comoros represents handiest 54% of latest arrivals, whilst there are already 566 DRC nationals. The craze is then showed: 922 Congolese had been registered in 2023, then 1,104 in 2024, the 12 months during which they was the primary nationwide crew welcomed via SPADA, forward of Comoros.
The Tsoundzou migrant camp, situated south of Mamoudzou – the capital of the Mahorais department-region – gives a privileged observatory of those transformations. This text is in response to a box survey carried out in Mayotte in Would possibly and June 2026 as a part of a analysis grant from the French Crimson Move Basis. A number of visits to the camp, repeated exchanges with harmony associations, in addition to extra detailed paintings with two neighborhood leaders (a person who lives out of doors the camp and a lady who lives there) made it imaginable to record residential routes, migration routes and techniques of social group at paintings.
A camp this is the results of new migratory routes
The Tsoundzou camp seemed in 2025 after the cave in of a number of unsafe camps, maximum particularly the only on the Cavani Stadium. Even though a small a part of the camp used to be evacuated on July 17, there are nonetheless a number of hundred other people in it, most commonly asylum seekers or looking ahead to a call on lodging.
In June 2026, the camp used to be expanded, with the development of latest shelters designed to deal with migrants whose arrival used to be anticipated quickly. This prediction of flows highlights the now structured nature of migratory routes coming from the Nice Lakes, Horn of Africa and Yemen areas.
This construction does no longer imply the surprising look of latest migratory routes. As an alternative, they expose their consolidation. Lately, Mayotte seems as probably the most anchorages of the direction connecting the Nice Lakes to the Comoros by the use of Tanzania and, for some exiles, the hope of continuous their adventure against France.
In the back of the tarpaulin, an actual social group
Tsoundzou camp is nearly invisible from the nationwide street. Then again, you handiest want to step a couple of meters clear of it to find a maze of alleys coated with shelters constructed from tarpaulin, bamboo, sheet steel and recycled fabrics. Within the absence of working water, electrical energy or sewage, the population regularly arranged their setting.
There are stores (some powered via turbines), eating places, a church, a mosque, hair salons, cabarets, puts for video projections and more than a few products and services that help you best up your telephone or translate administrative paperwork. In spite of the loss of fundamental infrastructure, the camp regularly evolved so as to meet the elemental wishes of its inhabitants. It’s subsequently structured and arranged: subsequently we’re a long way from the theory of a casual house.
Youngsters play at the banks of the Tsoundzou migrant camp in June 2026. When the tide is prime, the water rises as much as the tents. Alice Corbet/supplied via the creator, supplied via the creator
If schooling in France is open to all, few kids cross to university for a number of causes: as a result of folks have no idea how one can whole the procedures, as a result of they’re scared of being spotted via the police, as a result of colleges are chronically overcrowded within the territory.
The population additionally evolved their very own geography and toponymy: positive sectors of the camp undergo the names of Mamoudzou district. Essentially the most unsafe spaces, frequently flooded via the tides, are known as “Cavenes” to seek advice from the very deprived house of Mamoudzou, ceaselessly described because the worst slum in France.
Different spaces, extra wanted as a result of they’re higher evolved and no more topic to the ups and downs of the tides, are designated as “Petite-Terre”, referring of their representations to the Rock, this peninsula the place the prefecture, the military, the International Legion and the privileged population are situated. The buying groceries middle is known as “Majicavo-Dubai”, in connection with probably the most primary buying groceries districts within the municipality of Mamoudzou. Via those naming practices, citizens reproduce and reinterpret positive spatial hierarchies found in Mahorish society.
Are living in anticipation
Then again, the principle enjoy shared via camp citizens stays ready: looking ahead to an administrative assembly, registration of an asylum request, a call via the management or lodging. Delays greater considerably, particularly after the passage of Cyclone Chido, which hit in December 2024 and broken 80% of the territory, inflicting 1000’s of accidents and formally inflicting 40 deaths.
For some, it is going to take a number of months sooner than their record is even registered. This compelled immobilization profoundly transforms on a regular basis lifestyles. Most of the males we met described feeling not ready to paintings or financially strengthen their family members at house.
The seashore subsequent to the camp is on the market at low tide. This can be a position for rest, dialog, video games (particularly soccer): an air chamber between the density of the camp and the out of doors. Photograph taken June 2026. Alice Corbett/supplied via the creator, supplied via the creator
Days are arranged round discussions, impromptu football video games, or the hope that the inside track will most likely remedy their scenario. Ready thus turns into a lot more than a easy administrative outcome: it buildings social family members and long term possibilities.
Girls leaders
Along with administrative procedures, girls additionally face lengthy ready classes. If the day-to-day care of youngsters buildings their time, it does no longer take away them from imposed state of no activity or robust lack of confidence. With out administrative standing and uncovered to express vulnerabilities associated with their gender, particularly the dangers of sexual exploitation and prostitution, a few of them, recognized via harmony associations as specifically prone, take pleasure in help within the type of meals vouchers.
Additionally, within the Mahoran context the place girls have at all times performed crucial function, camp leaders are at first “leaders”: they invent associations, ceaselessly in response to foundation and language, and constitute them throughout the camp in addition to out of doors it. Thus, the “mother-boss” as many citizens of the camp name her, is answerable for the coordination of the “women’s forum”. A Congolese, who lately arrived, her abilities, her air of mystery and her stage of research secured her popularity and the function of consultant, mediator in associations or newshounds and advocacy officer.
When a well being factor turns into political
The debates surrounding the camp don’t handiest fear the reception of exiles. As Tsoundzou turns into visual, he additionally turns into the topic of political controversy. Associations warn of well being dangers associated with promiscuity, loss of apparatus and difficulties in getting access to water.
It’s true that the dwelling stipulations there are deplorable: within the rhythm of the tide, the population cross to recuperate within the mangroves, and the wet season floods where, and particularly brings out all of the waste. Unwell persons are ceaselessly afraid that the police will arrest them and “paper” them – in keeping with the time period utilized by our interlocutors, derived from the acronym PAF (Police auk Frontieres) – to an administrative detention middle once they cross to the health center. Difficulties in financing taxi journeys additionally give a contribution to the lengthen of their remedy.
Then again, positive political leaders condemn the everlasting status quo of a camp for African migrants at the territory of Mahoraj: well being issues occupy a distinct position in those debates and are topic to exploitation.
As is ceaselessly the case within the historical past of migration, actual or perceived epidemics give a contribution to fueling stigmatization mechanisms. Rumors about sicknesses reminiscent of Ebola or smallpox on occasion affiliate positive teams of migrants with well being dangers. Those discourses give a contribution to the development of the determine of the “African migrant” which has a tendency to homogenize populations which are nonetheless very various in the case of their foundation, standing and historical past.
A change in the way in which we have a look at migration
Pastime within the Tsoundzou case is going a long way past simply the camp. Whilst the debates about immigration in Mayotte have lengthy been constructed across the determine of migrants from the Comoros, the population of the camp lately most commonly come from different areas. Then again, the seen exclusion mechanisms ceaselessly stay identical.
Variations in nationality or trajectory have a tendency to vanish in the back of one class: the class of “migrant”. Camp Tsoundzou turns out to expose a deeper transformation. It displays how Mayotte is now a part of a migration geography that reaches a long way past the Comoros archipelago and extends all through the western Indian Ocean.
This camp additionally finds the tensions that pass the island lately: between border keep an eye on and the correct to asylum, between humanitarian imperatives and safety considerations (the internal minister spoke back to the Nationwide Meeting, sooner than a part of the camp used to be evacuated on July 17), between post-colonial heritage and new kinds of mobility. Such a lot of questions that cross a long way past the case of Mahoraj and fear the recent transformations of migration on the international stage.
