Comoros row with France escalates after it rejected migrants from nearby French island

The Comoros government vowed not to accept illegal migrants expelled from the neighboring French island of Mayotte and urged France to step back from a planned operation that could see their forced return.

In an escalating diplomatic spat, the Comoros government already asked France last Monday April 17 to abandon the planned Operation Wuambushu (“Take Back”) that was to involve evictions, destruction of illegal housing and arrests in Mayotte, a French department in the Indian Ocean facing a galloping crime rate, against the backdrop of a migration crisis. As part of the operation, which was approved by French President Emmanuel Macron in February, those without papers were to be sent back to the Comoran island of Anjouan, 70 kilometers away.

“The Comoros do not intend to welcome people expelled as part of the operation planned by the French government in Mayotte,” Comoros government spokesman said, adding that the planned action went against “the spirit and the letter” of agreements between the two countries.

Mayotte and the three islands of the present-day Comoros were French territories until 1975. Following a referendum, Grande Comore, Moheli and Anjouan islands declared themselves to be a separate country, the Union of the Comoros. But Mayotte voted to remain a French overseas territory and later became a French department — a status rejected by the Comoros, which continues to claim the island.

While Mayotte is France’s poorest department with around 80% of the population living beneath the poverty line and high levels of social delinquency, it also benefits from French infrastructure support and welfare, and this has caused an influx from the nearby Comoros.