Meeting in special session on Wednesday, 14 October, the cabinet of Mauritius decided to keep part of the island under curfew for two consecutive nights, after four nights of looting, arson and attacks on police stations. Since the unrest began, 94 people have been arrested, among them 16 minors and one police officer, and seven officers have been injured.
Public unrest is rare in the Indian Ocean country. Bloomberg described the episode as the worst wave of violence on the island since 1999, the year riots swept the country after a singer died in police custody.
One gunshot, and the protests change scale
The demonstrations began over water shortages and the cost of living, according to AFP. What changed their size was a single shot.
On the night of Friday the 9th, Élodie Thomas, 27, was travelling home from work in a van when she was hit by a bullet in a residential area south of the capital, Port Louis. Health Minister Anil Bachoo said she underwent successful surgery to remove the bullet and is recovering. Local media reported that a police sergeant has been provisionally charged over the case; the force has not commented on the incident and says only that an investigation is under way.
On the night of Monday the 12th, demonstrators burned tyres and blocked roads in several parts of the country, and police were deployed to clear the blockades.
The curfew, in two stages
On Tuesday the 13th, in an address to the nation, Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam announced a curfew from 8.30pm to 6am, covering Port Louis and the main population centres.
On Wednesday the 14th, the cabinet extended the measure to Wednesday and Thursday nights, now from 8.30pm to 5am — an hour shorter than the day before. Its geographical reach, however, grew: the restriction now covers ten administrative regions, roughly a third of the island, concentrated above all on the outskirts of towns, according to AFP.
The cabinet statement lists the incidents behind the decision: looting, possession of explosive material, curfew violations, arson and damage to police stations, traffic lights and CCTV systems. Police will reinforce their presence at locations considered strategic, especially where violence has been reported.
16 minors among those arrested
Those detained may be prosecuted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Given the number of teenagers involved, the government said it will consider lowering the minimum age for detention and prosecution from 14 to 12.
"No one has the right to take justice into their own hands," Ramgoolam said in Tuesday's address. The prime minister attributed part of the violence to drug traffickers, who, he said, "add fuel to the fire". Police sources told AFP that traffickers pay drug users to attack police stations.
Classes suspended until Friday
The Ministry of Education suspended classes on Thursday and Friday at nurseries and at primary and secondary schools; higher education institutions are also closed on both days. On Tuesday the closure had been partial, limited to some regions.
The prime minister's office said on Tuesday that the situation had returned to normal and that public services would run as usual — an assessment that the following day's wider curfew effectively corrected.
Independent from the United Kingdom since 1968, Mauritius shifted over decades from a sugar economy to tourism, textiles and financial services, and briefly reached the World Bank's high-income bracket in 2020, before the covid-19 pandemic hit its tourism sector.
With information from AFP, Reuters, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera and Anadolu Agency.
