MAMOUDZOU – Mayotte’s main tourist office stands nearly empty, a lonely tropical outpost overlooking a people-less port.
Its only hospital, however, is overwhelmed. The demand for intensive care beds is more than triple the supply, as medical workers fight to contain the French Indian Ocean territory’s worst coronavirus outbreak yet.
The Mayotte islands are the poorest corner of the European Union, tucked between Madagascar and the mainland coast of Mozambique in southern Africa.
They have been the last spot in France to receive any coronavirus vaccines. Local authorities feel forgotten and say their difficulties in fighting the virus reflect long-standing inequalities between France’s majority-white mainland and its far-flung multiracial