Comoros: Chronic Poverty Pushes Anjouanese to Risk Their Lives

[Kire]

Comoros: Chronic Poverty Pushes Anjouanese to Risk Their Lives
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

March 30, 2005

Mutsamudu

In a desperate attempt to escape grinding poverty, thousands of Anjouanese continue to risk everything to make the perilous journey from the Comoros to the nearby island of Mayotte.

An estimated 40 people a day are smuggled to the relatively well-off French-administered Mayotte, often in overcrowded rickety fishing boats that struggle to cope with the Indian Ocean's swells.

Earlier this month 35 people drowned after an overloaded 'kwaaza-kwaaza' (motorised fishing boat) capsized off the east coast of Anjouan. Local NGOs say the tragedy was the latest in string of accidents in recent years.

The Anjouan-based Observatory for Clandestine Emigration (OCI) has calculated that in the past five years around 500 people have drowned trying to make the 150 km crossing to Mayotte.

Despite these dangers, thousands of Anjouanese still take to the sea in search of a better life.

More: http://allafrica.com/stories/200503300577.html