PARIS (AP) — France is sending army forces to distribute water on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, which is dealing with an unprecedented water disaster prompted by the island cluster’s most extreme drought in many years.

Troops with the French Foreign Legion and French navy primarily based within the area will work with native authorities to make sure water provides to native populations, the Defense Ministry stated in an announcement on Thursday.

Authorities have ordered water cuts two days out of three on Mayotte, a territory northwest of Madagascar that's the poorest a part of France. The water woes come on prime of migration tensions round individuals arriving from the neighboring nation of Comoros.

Residents protested Saturday exterior the Mayotte water administration headquarters, carrying banners studying “Mayotte is Thirsty!”, based on native media reviews. When the water faucets are working, households refill buckets and tubs as they'll, however provides rapidly run low, particularly in additional distant areas.

Around 30% of the inhabitants doesn’t have entry to working water at house, based on regional well being authorities. They have famous a rise within the variety of individuals struggling diarrhea, and illnesses comparable to typhoid had been already way more widespread than in mainland France.

Authorities appointed a particular ‘’water prefect” this summer season to take care of Mayotte’s most extreme drought since 1997. Insufficient rainfall resulted in low water ranges in reservoirs that residents depend on to get by means of the dry season from May to November.

Some reservoirs may very well be empty by the top of September, based on an announcement final week from the regional administration. The reservoirs produce 20,000 cubic meters of water day by day, when the wants are estimated to be 42,000 cubic meters per day, it stated.

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