OPINIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE FRENCH CGLPL the individuals. Details of one or more associations capable of helping detainees with their rights must be brought to their attention. The list of available lawyers must be displayed. 5/ The ability to seek asylum is a fundamental right. As it is likely that people passing through the Pamandzi detention centre will be seeking asylum, the conditions for a fully effective exercising of this right, notably concerning the information and assistance available to asylum seekers, must be in place. Today these conditions are not met. 6/ Because their parents were detained, some 2'901 minors were handled by the CRA in 2008 of which 2'711 were removed, without their ages and family relations being verified with any certainty. Such a situation cannot be allowed to continue; proper identification of people to be placed in detention and to be removed demands rigorous attention to the accuracy of such information, whatever the difficulties to be found in the local context. When establishing the absence of any family links is impossible, removal must be ruled out. 7/ The specific situation concerning children abandoned in Mayotte following the expulsion of their parents is particularly disturbing. In order for these children to be properly housed and schooled, it is urgent to put in place an operational unit which will coordinate the activities of the local authority’s children’s aid department and the various national institutions. 8/ Accommodation conditions are unacceptable - on the day of the inspection, 140 people, adults and children, were present, and occupied two rooms with a combined surface area of 137m2: • • • • • 56 the detainees living in such crowded conditions lacked any possibility of privacy; the centre does not possess any beds and no-one has his own bedding. The people were sitting or lying on the floor. Young infants were in their mothers’ arms and were no better served than anyone else in terms of bedding; the men were not able freely to get to the toilets or to any tap; squat toilets and showers were insufficient in number and in a dilapidated state; they give directly on to the hall and are only closed by a simple swing door one metre high some fifty centimetres from the floor; the wall tiling was smeared with blood supposedly coming