Comoros Islands

The Comoros Islands form an archipelago of volcanic islands situated off the south-east coast of Africa, to the east of Tanzania and north-west of Madagascar. They are divided into an independent nation, the Union of the Comoros, and the island of Mayotte, a de facto French Overseas Community.

The first traces of inhabitation date back to the 6th century. Since then, numerous ethnicities have crossed over and mixed, among which are populations of Bantu, Malagasy, Indonesian, Arab, Portuguese, French and Indian origin. Islam arrived here in the 10th Century. These islands formed with Zanzibar, Pemba, Lamu... and the towns along the Kenyan and Tanzanian coast a united and prosperous area with Swahili culture, living by trading slaves, ivory and other African goods destined for markets in the Middle East and India. During this period, power was in the hands of a number of local rulers. During their explorations of all this region, the Portuguese discovered and landed on the Islands of the Moon (qamar in Arabic means ‘moon’) in 1505.

Between 1841 and 1912, the French subdued the islands in a series of a number of incredible moves mixing, just like in Madagascar, acts of war, treachery and love stories. They succeeded in establishing protectorates and then a colony administered by the Governor General of Madagascar. The colony itself was formally established only after the Berlin conference of 1884-85 in which European powers divided up Africa.

In 1946, the islands were no longer administratively attached to Madagascar and for the first time in their history formed a united and recognized administrative entity, an Overseas Territory of France.

In 1974, France organized a referendum for self-determination in the archipelago: three of the four islands opted for independence (Grande Comore, Mohéli and Anjouan) and formed the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoro Islands. Only Mayotte wished to remain united with France.

In 1997, demands for increased autonomy on the islands of Nzwani (Anjouan) and Mwali (Moheli) led to the breakup of the Federal Islamic Republic.The government reformed under a new constitution in 2001 as the Union of the Comoro Islands. The new constitution gave each of the three islands considerable autonomy than had been enjoyed previously.

Mayotte, which had voted to retain French suzerainty in the 1975 referendum, obtained a statute as a Overseas Department following another referendum held on the island on the 29th March 2009.