Police on France's Mayotte to Crack down on Migrants

The police chief of Mayotte said Monday that he planned to crack down on clandestine immigration on the French Indian Ocean territory, where locals have forced hundreds of settlers out of their homes.

"We are pursuing the intensification of the fight against clandestine immigration," the newly appointed prefect of Mayotte, Frederic Veau, told a press conference.

About 1,000 migrants, almost all from the Comoro Islands in the same archipelago off the coast of southeast Africa, have been expelled from their Mayotte homes by anti-migrant groups since January, according to the local office of rights body La Cimade.

Residents' associations on Sunday issued "invitations to leave" to migrants in nine Mayotte villages, the prefect's office reported during a crisis meeting on the issue.

In some villages, angry locals drove the migrant settlers from their homes, urging them to be gone before the start of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan in June.

Veau said that of 365 people stopped officials on Sunday, 217 were illegal migrants who would be transported to the border.

The police chief said Monday that maritime patrols would be stepped up between Mayotte and the Comoran island of Anjouan and also to Madagascar, with the help of a French frigate and Falcon aircraft.

Mayotte, which lies 8,000 kilometers (almost 5,000 miles) from Paris, opted to remain under French rule in a referendum when the other islands in the Comoros chose independence in 1975.

It is much wealthier than the neighboring islands and more than 40 percent of its population is thought to have been born abroad. Many have come from nearby Comoros in search of work.

Some 800 other expelled people are camped out on the main square in the capital Mamoudzou.

Veau said that their status would be studied "case by case" and those with a valid residential claim would be taken back to their villages.