17 migrants were injured in clashes with youths in Cavani on Sunday

The situation was tense in the Cavani Stadium area on Sunday 14 January. In the early evening, young men attacked the migrants, wounding 17 people with stones, sticks and iron bars, according to firefighters. This came after the arrival of dozens of migrants who were seeking to reach the camp located inside the stadium. The neighborhood residents prevented them from reaching the Kafani roundabout.

“We are determined to make them leave, and we can't take it anymore. Every day more arrive. They won't go back there.” A local resident explains. Another resident added: “SWhether they are Somalis, Nigerians or Ivorians, this is not our problem. We no longer want these foreign residents to invade our island on a large scale.“.

Some migrants living in the camp went out to support their compatriots before they found themselves stranded outside at the Al-Tabadi roundabout. “We want to go back to the stadium, we have nowhere to sleep, no toilets, we have nothing“, says a Somali citizen. The situation began to get tense when the migrants threw stones in the direction of the police, who responded with tear gas bombs. As night fell, gangs of young men intervened, wounding migrants inside and outside the camp.

The tensions come two days after the President of the National Assembly visited the site. Then Yael Brown-Pivett explained that it was about ““For the vast majority of people who have legal status on the territory, either through refugee status or through an asylum application that is in progress.” The governorate must, first of all, resolve the issue of rehousing them. “If they are there legally, they must bring them to Paris, because the island of Mayotte can no longer absorb the misery of the region.“, answers one of the protesters who was mobilized on Sunday.