MAMOUDZOU: Ten migrants from the Comoros, including a seven-year-old child, have drowned while trying to make their way illegally to France’s Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, officials said on Friday.
Mayotte has in recent years seen a massive influx of migrants from its comparatively poor and unstable neighbour, and increasingly also from countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In the most recent attempt, 24 people set out for Mayotte in a kwassa-kwassa motorised fishing boat from Anjouan -- a 70-kilometre (43-mile) journey. The bodies of 10 of them were found washed up on a northeastern beach of Mayotte on Thursday, police told AFP.