GENEVA: The French Red Cross said on Tuesday it was out of contact with most of its people in France's Indian Ocean territory Mayotte, days after Cyclone Chido ripped through the islands. Cyclone Chido barrelled into the archipelago at the weekend, leaving health services in tatters, power and mobile phone services knocked out and the airport closed to civilian flights, while there is mounting concern about how to ensure supplies of drinking water. The French Red Cross said it had 300 volunteers and 137 employees in Mayotte.
"Since the cyclone, due to communication breakdowns and power cuts, (the French Red Cross) has been struggling to reach them. To date, it has been able to contact 70," a spokeswoman said. The fact that many were so far unaccounted for "does not mean at this stage that they are missing", she stressed, adding that efforts to reach the rest were being stepped up. The Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which comprises the French Red Cross and 190 other national societies, had earlier warned that many Red Cross volunteers were missing.
"We are talking about more than 200 volunteers already affected and... missing," IFRC spokesman Tommaso Della Longa said. "They don't have any contact with them." He said that "French Red Cross colleagues already deployed some teams and some humanitarian aid before the cyclone hit. "But then of course, being prepared for such a heavy impact is very complicated," he said, describing the logistics as "a nightmare". Della Longa warned that "even shelter is lacking at the moment, and then you need to organise distribution". "So this will take time, without mentioning the search and rescue operation and people that can still be under the rubble," he said. "The hope here is that humanitarian aid can enter as soon as possible, but most importantly the search and rescue operation will find the largest number of people still alive." According to the latest official toll, 21 people are confirmed to have been killed by Cyclone Chido in Mayotte.
Meanwhile, France said it will impose a nighttime curfew on the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte. French President Emmanuel Macron, who chaired a crisis meeting on Monday night, has described the situation as a "tragedy" and promised to visit Mayotte in the coming days. Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who on Monday visited the island, said that Mayotte has been "completely devastated", with 70 per cent of inhabitants affected. "The toll will be heavy, too heavy," Retailleau warned. He announced the arrival "in the coming days" of 400 additional gendarmes to reinforce the 1,600 gendarmes and police officers present on the archipelago, while specifying that there had "not really been any looting" so far. — AFP
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