Mayotte Island Digg, con’t.
Mayotte Island overrun by migrants; unaccompanied minors are the biggest losers
Unlike surrounding East-African islands, Mayotte Island is ruled by France. So it attracts seafaring migrants seeking a better life, despite the dangers of sea travel in open boats, which drowns untold numbers each year. Most who survive the trip are detained and then sent home. But there seems to be little effort to look into the circumstances of unaccompanied minors, who are at great risk for victimization:
“Normal French immigration laws have been altered, campaigners say, to allow instant deportation without recourse to a judge. They add that under French law children cannot be deported, or put in pre-deportation holding centres, unless accompanied either by their parents or a guardian approved by a judge - but if unaccompanied children arrive on a boat with adults, the campaigners say, officials in Mayotte automatically assume the adults are responsible for the children, and deport them together. Last year [2014], more than 5,000 children were held in holding centres prior to deportation."
“France's migrant 'cemetery' in Africa”
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34548270
The migrant situation has dramatically worsened since February 2018, recently reaching a crisis point. Now locals have begun rounding up illegals on their own:
"A group of residents from the Indian Ocean French island of Mayotte has been rounding up suspected illegal migrants and taking them to local police. The move targeted around 100 “foreigners, Comorans and Africans”, a member of the group told AFP. Protests against the economic crisis and illegal immigrants from the Comoros islands have paralysed the island.”
http://www.africanews.com/2018/03/18/mayotte-residents-rounding-up-illegal-migrants/
Considering the rock-bottom reputation that the Comoros Islands already has for human trafficking, the effects of civil unrest are bound to make a bad situation even worse.