MAMOUDZOU, Mayotte — (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday surveyed the devastation that a cyclone wrought across the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte as thousands of people tried to cope without the bare essentials and amid fears of a surging death toll.
“Mayotte is demolished,” an airport security agent told Macron as soon as he stepped off the plane.
The security agent, Assane Haloi, said her family members, including small children, are without water or electricity and have nowhere to go, after Cyclone Chido the strongest cyclone in nearly a century ripped through the French territory on Saturday.
“There’s no roof, there’s nothing. No water, no food, no electricity. We can’t even shelter, we are all wet with our children covering ourselves with whatever we have so that we can sleep,” she said, asking for emergency aid.
Macron went on an helicopter for an aerial appraisal of the damage. He then headed to the hospital in Mamoudzou, Mayotte’s capital, to meet with medical staff and patients.
Wearing a traditional Mayotte scarf over his white shirt and tie, sleeves rolled to the elbows, the French president listened to people asking for help. A member of the medical staff told him some people hadn't had a drink of water for 48 hours.
“We can’t help and we are the ones helping,” an employee of the hospital's psychology unit told Macron.
“We are all in an unsafe situation, psychologically unwell, sorry," she said, wiping tears from her eyes while the president put his hand on her shoulder.
Macron said apart from those who arrived with him, more caregivers would be arriving and that a field hospital will be set up on Friday.
Some residents also expressed their agony at not knowing about those who have died or are still missing, partly because of the Muslim practice of burying the dead within 24 hours.
Mayotte’s lawmaker Estelle Youssoufa said “we’re dealing with open-air mass graves. There are no rescuers, no one has come to recover the buried bodies.”
Some survivors and aid groups have described hasty burials and the stench of bodies.
Macron acknowledged that many who died haven't been reported. He said phone services will be repaired “in the coming days” so that people can report their missing loved ones.
French authorities said at least 31 people have died and more than 1,500 people were injured, more than 200 critically. But it’s feared hundreds or even thousands of people have died.
Macron said he would stay in Mayotte overnight and will visit a slum area badly hit by cyclone Chido on Friday morning.
Abdou Houmadou, 27, said it's emergency aid that's needed, not Macron's presence. “Mr President, what I'd like to tell you... is I think the spending you made from Paris to Mayotte would have been better spent to help the people," he said.
Another resident, Ahamadi Mohammed, said Macron’s visit “is a good thing because he’ll be able to see by himself the damage.”
“I think that we’ll then get significant aid to try and get the island back on its feet,” the 58-year-old said.
Macron's office said four tons food and medical aid as well as additional rescuers were aboard the president's flight.
A navy ship arrived in Mayotte on Thursday morning with 180 tons of aid and equipment.
People living in a large slum on the outskirts of Mamoudzou were some of the hardest hit from the cyclone. Many had lost their houses, some had lost friends.
Nassirou Hamidouni sheltered in his house when the cyclone hit.
His neighbor was killed when his house collapsed on him and his six children. Hamidouni and others dug through the rubble to reach them.
The 28-year-old father of five is now trying to rebuild his own house, which was also destroyed.
He believes the death toll is much higher than what’s officially being reported given the severity of what he lived through.
"It was very hard,” he said.
Alibouna Haithouna, a 25-year-old mother of four, said her family has been displaced from the slums and has found shelter in a school.
Her brother was killed by the cyclone, she said, explaining she hasn't been able to get his body from the hospital because of “a lot of paperwork” and the fact that you have to pay to recover the body.
Mayotte, located in the Indian Ocean between mainland Africa's east coast and northern Madagascar, is France's poorest territory.
The cyclone devastated entire neighborhoods as many people ignored the warnings, thinking the storm wouldn't be so extreme.
Mayotte has more than 320,000 people according to the French government.
Most residents are Muslim and French authorities have estimated another 100,000 migrants live there.
Mayotte is the only part of the Comoros archipelago that voted to remain part of France in a 1974 referendum.
The French territory has seen in the past decade a massive arrival of migrants from the neighboring islands — the independent nation of Comoros, one of the world’s poorest countries.
Some other migrants come from as far as Somalia, with, for some, the hope to be able to reach the European continent.
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Corbet reported from Paris. Associated Press journalist Masha Macpherson in Paris contributed.