Macron heckled throughout go to to cyclone-battered Mayotte as residents plead for water

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French president Emmanuel Macron has been heckled by angry residents of a Mayotte neighbourhood ravaged by cyclone Chido as they complained that food and water had not reached them nearly a week after the storm hit.

Officials in France’s poorest overseas territory, an Indian Ocean archipelago, have confirmed at least 31 people were killed by the cyclone but there are fears that hundreds, or possibly thousands, could still be missing.

The damage caused is profound. Some of the islands’ worst-affected neighbourhoods, hillside shantytowns comprised of flimsy huts that are home to undocumented migrants, have not yet been accessed by rescue workers.

“Seven days and you’re not able to give water to the population!” one man shouted at Mr Macron as he walked through the neighbourhood of Tsingoni.

Mr Macron, who had extended his visit to Mayotte to spend more time surveying the damage from the worst storm to hit the territory in 90 years, responded that water would be distributed at city halls.

“I understand your impatience. You can count on me,” he said.

The French president had already faced heckles from a crowd the previous evening who had chanted for his resignation and accused his government of neglecting Mayotte, which is located around 5,000 miles from mainland France.

France’s interior minister Bruno Retailleau said 80 tons of food and 50 tons of water were distributed on Thursday in nine of Mayotte’s 17 communes and that the remaining eight would receive provisions on Friday.

“Everything has been put in place to allow the distribution of 600,000 litres of water per day, or two litres per Mayotte resident,” he said on X.

Later on Friday, Mr Macron led a crisis meeting of officials before departing in the afternoon for Djibouti, where he will share a Christmas meal with French troops stationed there.

Supplies were also on their way from Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Italy, including tents and beds for the homeless, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said.

Ali Djimoi, who lives in the Kaweni shantytown on the outskirts of the capital Mamoudzou, said Mayotte had been “completely abandoned” by the French state.

“The water running out the pipes – even if it’s working you can’t drink it, it comes out dirty,” he told Reuters.

Mr Djimoi said eight people in his immediate neighbourhood were killed in the storm, two of whom were quickly buried close to a mosque.

Authorities have warned it will be difficult to establish a precise death toll, in part because some victims were buried immediately, in accordance with Muslim tradition, before their deaths could be counted.

The large number of undocumented migrants from Comoros, Madagascar and other countries also complicates matters. Official statistics put Mayotte’s population at 321,000, but many say it is much higher.

Three out of four people live below the national poverty line in Mayotte, which remains heavily dependent on support from metropolitan France.

The islands, close to the Comoros archipelago, first came under France’s control in 1841. In 1974, Mayotte voted to stay French at the same time the three main Comoro islands opted to form an independent state.

Chido also killed at least 73 people in Mozambique and 13 in Malawi after reaching continental Africa, according to officials in those countries.

Source: independent.co.uk