MORONI: There is a small perilous stretch of Indian Ocean that separates Africa from Europe, a continental divide which thousands of clandestine emigrants try to bridge illegally every year, risking deportation and even death.

In the latest in a grim series of accidents, eight people drowned this week somewhere along the 70 kilometre between the Comoran island of Anjouan and the nearby Mayotte, an isle in the same archipelago which is still a French possession.

Twelve people were still missing two days after their fishing boat, or kwassa-kwassa, went down. Five passengers survived the ordeal.

There were 17 such accidents and 183 fatalities or disappearances in the same waters between July 2000 and December 2001, according to a French research organization on Mayotte.

The number of those who have died or went “missing” in their quest for a better life over the last two years is now about 200.

Three of the four islands in the archipelago, which lies in the mouth of the Mozambique Channel, voted for independence in 1975: Grande Comore, Moheli and Anjouan.

Voters on the fourth, Mayotte, chose to stay part of France and currently enjoy a higher standard of living than their neighbours, who have had to endure endless economic hardship and political strife.

There have been a score of coup attempts, some of them successful, on the Comoros since independence.

Ever since France obliged Comorans wishing to travel to Mayotte to obtain visas, the underground traffic of people has flourished.

The journeys usually start from the Anjouanese villages of Bambao-Mtsanga, Domoni, Mramani and Moya, late in the afternoon to ensure that it is dark on arrival in Mayotte.

The people-smuggling networks are well organized and operate on all three Comoran islands, sometimes, it is alleged, with the complicity of local authorities.

The most common cause of boat accidents is over-crowding. Bad weather does the rest.

And it is not as if the ordeal ends once Mayotte is reached. Immigration officials are vigilant. In 2000, they turned back almost 8,000 Comorans.

The people of Mayotte regard their neighbours as foreigners and often give them a hostile reception, blaming them for insecurity and working illegally.—AFP