🇲🇺 Four children have died from violence since 2025, Parliament is told

Four children have died from violence since 2025, Parliament is told

Four children have died after acts of violence in Mauritius and Rodrigues since January 2025, the acting Prime Minister, Arianne Navarre-Marie, told the National Assembly on Tuesday. Three deaths were in Mauritius, one in Rodrigues, and police investigations are still open. A child's death, she told MPs, cannot be filed away as a statistic.

The figures answered a Private Notice Question from the leader of the opposition, Chetan Baboolall, an MP's urgent question put straight to a minister. As of 6 November, 365 children were living in 22 residential care homes here, with 44 more in Rodrigues.

The drug numbers are starker. Since January 2024, police have arrested 103 minors over alleged drug offences, 23 of them inside secondary schools and four in primary schools. Twenty-three children went before the Children's Court, and courts convicted 21. The count is on the record now, what happens to the children behind it is the harder question.

Numbers this specific usually mean the state knows exactly where the gaps are, and is being asked why they are still gaps.

PM Ramgoolam sees President Macron before France's 2027 vote

PM Ramgoolam sat down with President Macron at the Élysée Palace on Tuesday afternoon, on the sidelines of the Paris Peace Forum. Their talk ran over the state of Mauritius-France cooperation and where to take it next.

PM Ramgoolam's office says this could be the last meeting between PM Ramgoolam and President Macron before France goes to the polls in 2027. France is one of the island's oldest partners, on trade and on security across the Indian Ocean, so who sits in the Élysée after that vote matters here too. Both leaders promised to keep the ties warm.

Air Mauritius posts Rs 4.1 billion; the real figure is half that

Rs 4.1 billion sounds like a healthy year for Air Mauritius. Strip out three one-time accounting entries and the national carrier's underlying profit for 2025 to 2026 is closer to Rs 2 billion, the acting Prime Minister told Parliament on Tuesday.

The gap, about 42.8 million euros, comes from items like a revaluation of aircraft return provisions and expired Covid travel vouchers. Operations still threw off Rs 5.4 billion in net cash over the year, so the airline is flying on its own fuel.

Three officers near Élodie Thomas shooting may face charges

Three police officers who were at the scene when Élodie Thomas was shot in Camp-Levieux could soon face prosecution. The police watchdog is finalising its file for the Director of Public Prosecutions on whether the men tried to help the wounded woman after a colleague's bullet struck her neck. Each is out on Rs 25,000 bail.

Rs 6.3 billion in foreign money heads for the water network

Help for the water network has a big price tag. Mauritius is close to signing Rs 6.3 billion in financing from the French development agency AFD and the European Union to replace leaking pipes and old pumps. The money arrive as reservoirs sit low and districts ration supply by the day. Cash is the easy part; laying pipe before the dry season is the test.

Shorts

Suspect in girl's abuse case still at large – Three weeks on, police are still hunting the man, listed as a habitual criminal, accused of abusing a girl of six.

Dreamer cannabis case points to a Phuket boss – Detectives name a British-Mauritian nightclub owner in Thailand as the brain behind the 1.5 tonne yacht haul.

One Mauritian in five now lives with diabetes – The patients' group APSA wants faster screening as cases keep climbing across the island.

Uteem: we jail the workers, not the traffickers – The MP says police round up exploited migrant workers but leave the networks that profit untouched.

Port Louis readies venue for US-Africa summit – Crews aim to finish the Swami Vivekananda centre by 15 November for December's business summit.

Upcoming Events

Sat 14 Nov · NASA Space Apps Challenge
2 days · Rajiv Gandhi Science Center

Thu 19 Nov · ThirdThursday Networking
9:30am to 11:30am at Middlesex Uni

Fri 4 Dec · FirstFriday Networking
Social event from 6:30pm to 8:30pm

120

Mauritian students, aged 16 to 25, join the NASA Space Apps Challenge for the first time this weekend, fielding 25 teams at Rajiv Gandhi Science Centre, Bell-Village.

0.4%

how far global fossil fuel emissions should fall this year, as renewables keep spreading and the Iran war jolts oil supply. Small, but the first downward step for a while.

64.4

Mauritius's score on the 2026 Ayre AI index, first in Africa and eighth in the Commonwealth among 56 countries. Backers reckon AI could add up to USD 355 million to GDP within a decade.

DR Congo condemns 66 soldiers to death for fleeing the front

A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo has sentenced 66 soldiers to death for deserting, mutinying or disobeying orders during the fight against rebels in the country's east. It is one of the harshest mass sentences the army has handed down in the long eastern war.

Congo has kept executions on paper for years. Whether these sentences are ever carried out is another matter entirely.

Senegal boat disaster toll climbs to 39

A migrant boat that capsized off Senegal has now claimed 39 lives; the government vows to pursue the smuggling networks behind it.

Mauritania's voice against slavery quits parliament

Biram Dah Abeid, Mauritania's best-known campaigner against slavery, has resigned from parliament, citing what he called widespread corruption.

Russia, Ukraine and the US try again in Abu Dhabi

Can a fifth year of war end at a conference table in the Gulf? Russia, Ukraine and the United States opened three-way talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, the latest American push to halt the fighting.

Even as the negotiators sat down, fresh strikes landed on both sides, a reminder that talking and shooting often run in parallel. Nobody is promising a breakthrough.

Turkish steel plant blast kills at least 17

A blast and fire at a steel plant in western Turkey have killed at least 17 workers and injured others; President Erdogan has ordered an investigation.

France pins a supermarket cyberattack on Iran

France says Iran's Revolutionary Guards hacked supermarket refrigerators, spoiling food stocks and causing millions in losses in an oddly everyday act of sabotage.

Two brothers turn island nostalgia into a summer business

Summer in Mauritius has two new hustlers. Brothers Faiz and Fadil Khaidoo, in their early thirties, have turned island treats and handmade crafts into small businesses, betting seasonal nostalgia sells as well as sunscreen.

It is a small story with a familiar lesson, the beach economy is not just hotels and boat trips, it is also whoever spots what visitors and locals want to buy in December.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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