“All were beheaded…”: shock on the set of Léa Salamé and Nicolas Demorand during a chilling story

During the morning show on France Inter this December 17, journalists Léa Salam&eacute and Nicolas Demorand received a guest whose story deeply shocked them.

© France Inter Léa Salamé à la présentation de la matinale sur France Inter

IN BRIEF

• On December 17, on France Inter, Mayotte MP Estelle Youssouffa described the situation on the ground.
• Mayotte was recently hit by a cyclone that caused considerable human and material damage.
• The MP returned to what shocks her the most after the disaster.

The news is deciphered every morning on France Inter and on December 17, Léa Salamé and Nicolas Demorand focused in particular on the situation in Mayotte. As a reminder, this French overseas department was hit by a violent cyclone which caused considerable damage and killed many people. At the microphone, the Mayotte MP Estelle Youssouffa described what is happening on the ground while new material and human reinforcements are expected.

“Mayotte is unrecognizable, 90% of the solid houses have lost their roofs” the MP begins by explaining. And to continue: “There are no more leaves on the trees which have all been decapitated. The shanty towns were completely razed, the population inside was swallowed up by the mudslides and sheet metal”. For Estelle Youssouffa, one element was more shocking than the others. “What is very hard is to see the silence. There are very few people outside. More than the destruction, what is hard is to see that the populations are very few compared to the usual population”.

The cyclone leaves behind it “a particularly distressing silence”

She recalls that the areas of her constituency of Mayotte are usually well populated. “These are areas that normally teem with life. And there is no one in the streets” she laments. The fallout from the cycloneare therefore felt in many ways, and notably through the interrupted habits of the devastated territory. “Normally, every morning, we are woken up by the mosques that answer each other. There, there was only one that sounded and resonated alone. It is a particularly anguishing silence”.

The deputy nevertheless insisted on reassure the people present on set and the listeners by specifying that his family is fine. “I am like many households, I lost my house and my family lived through hell. But I am lucky that everyone is alive”. The official human toll is for the moment difficult to éestablish for many reasons, but Estelle Youssouffa highlights another problem.

The human toll of the cyclone will probably never be known

“I think that the real toll of people swept away by the mud, winds and sheet metal will never be known. These are populations of shanty towns, irregular and clandestine. These are people who were afraid to go to shelters and to go see the authorities when they called the population to go to shelters. So I think thatwe will never have the exact count of the victims“. The rescue teams continue to work, still looking for victims of the cyclone.