“The instant I open my eyes, it’s awful. I remember that I’m not at home, that I’m not with my children when they need me.” On the phone from Anjouan in Comoros, 'Nadia' – not her real name - apologises for not being able to hold back the tears. “I'm just so tired, so sad, they’re without their mother, they couldn’t even start the new school year,” she continues, referring to her six children, aged between two and ten.
It has now been three weeks since her family was torn in two when she was taken across the 70-kilometre stretch of the Indian Ocean that separates the French overseas département of Mayotte from neighbouring Comoros. It was the first time in her life that Nadia had made this journey. It was a journey made against her will, and one which goes against her image of a France in which “normally, there are rules to prevent this”.
This mother of six French children was expelled by the Mayotte prefecture on August 20th. Just the day before, Nadia had gone to the court to request a certificate of French nationality. “I was so relieved at the time, I was finally going to be able to complete my paperwork,” she recalls.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Now aged 27, and despite being born in Mayotte, Nadia had been systematically blocked for many years in her efforts to obtain French identity documents: the civil registry services at the town hall in Mayotte's capital Mamoudzou lost her birth certificate after it was last issued in 2015.
It was only thanks to the intervention of a determined representative from an association, who was committed to helping her claim her rights - even to the point of alerting the public prosecutor - that the situation seemed to have been resolved. In July of this year Nadia finally received that precious birth certificate. “I was really happy, I was going to be able to look for a proper job so my family could live better,” she says.
'You're taking the boat, you're going home'
On August 19th, her hope restored, Nadia had gone to the court. Though she was feeling more relaxed, she had not forgotten to take all the necessary precautions: she had her administrative dossier and her children's identity cards. “...You can be stopped anywhere here, at any time,” she explains. “It had already happened to me four times, but each time, they let me out of the CRA [editor's note, the 'centre de rétention administrative' or administrative detention centre] after looking at my file,” the young woman explains. “Because of that, recently I've only gone out out if it was an emergency, as it's hard for the children when you get arrested,” she adds.
So when she was stopped by the border police in Mamoudzou, Nadia had her file with her. But her explanations were to no avail, and she was sent to the administrative detention centre in Petite-Terre, the neighbouring smaller island which is also part of Mayotte. She quickly alerted her friend from the association as well as her partner. The former contacted various administrative services online, while the latter went to Petite-Terre with an additional bundle of documents. Meanwhile, Nadia met with a social worker at the detention centre. “I was reassured; she told me I was going to get out,” she recalls.
However, the young mother ended up spending the night at the detention centre. The next morning, her name was called. “I thought it was to let me go, but they told me ‘You’re taking the boat, you’re going back home', when my home is here,” she recalls, her voice choking with emotion. Forced to board a boat with about 60 others facing the same fate, Nadia was devastated.
As always, her first thoughts were of her children, from whom she was being forcibly separated by a sea that terrifies her. “There were people saying they would come back on a kwassa [editor's note, a local style of fishing boat], so as not to leave their children alone. But I don’t want to take a kwassa, I’m sorry, but it scares me too much. I don’t want to die at sea. Just last week, a boat capsized [see black box below for more details], there was a young bride on board who was going to join her husband ... What would happen to my children if I died too?” she sobs.
After a few hours the boat finally arrived at the port of Mutsamudu on the Comoran island of Anjouan, where Nadia was ordered to disembark. At first she resisted, but eventually did as she was told. And, like all arrivals in her situation – the boat also carried standard passengers – she was asked to show what is known as her 'OQTF' - the written order obliging her to leave French territory.
'There's the law, and then there's Mayotte'
Mediapart has examined this document and its contents are revealing. According to the prefecture's order, even though she was born on Mayotte and had never left there, Nadia’s expulsion was justified on the grounds that she had been unable to “prove she entered Mayotte legally,” as well as by her “intention to voluntarily leave the territory.” This is despite the fact that she says she refused to sign the document. On top of that, the OQTF order states that her removal caused “no disproportionate interference with her rights regarding her private and family life”.
Adding insult to injury, the document incorrectly states that Nadia was born in “Mamoudzou (Comoros)”, when in fact Mamoudzou is the capital of Mayotte. Under different circumstances, this error might almost have been amusing, given the ongoing diplomatic dispute between France and neighbouring Comoros, with the latter claiming that Mayotte belongs to it. The Mayotte prefecture has not responded to Mediapart's enquiries about Nadia's case.
Reports are standardised documents, and OQTF orders are generated automatically.
“Unfortunately it's not surprising,” says Marjane Ghaem, a lawyer specialising in the rights of foreign nationals in Mayotte. “Reports are standardised documents, and OQTF orders are generated automatically, in advance of or or without any personal analysis of an individual’s situation,” she explains. She cites the recent case of a father, the sole legal guardian of his children who has a valid residency permit, who was deported even though his lawyer had filed an urgent appeal with the judge that very morning. “There's the law, and then there's Mayotte,” Marjane Ghaem notes wryly.
Between June and July 2024, another particularly vulnerable young French woman was deported twice by the prefecture of Mayotte. According to her father, who spoke to the local online news site Kweli and who travelled to the Comoros to find her, the young woman, who was “suffering from mental health issues”, had been wandering around there and had been sexually abused while sleeping on a beach. “What have we done to deserve this?” Nadia asks repeatedly.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter