The death toll in the French territory of Mayotte from Cyclone Chido is “several hundred” and may run into the thousands, the island’s top government official told a local broadcaster Sunday.

France rushed rescue teams and supplies to its largely poor overseas department in the Indian Ocean that has suffered widespread destruction.

“I think there are some several hundred dead, maybe we’ll get close to a thousand. Even thousands … given the violence of this event,” Mayotte Prefect François-Xavier Bieuville told TV station Mayotte la 1ere.

He had previously said it was the worst cyclone to hit Mayotte in 90 years.

Bieuville said it was extremely difficult to get an exact number of deaths and injuries after Mayotte was pummeled by the intense tropical cyclone on Saturday, causing major damage to public infrastructure, including the airport, flattening neighborhoods and knocking out electricity supplies.

The French Interior Ministry confirmed at least 11 deaths and more than 250 injuries earlier Sunday but said that was expected to increase substantially.

Mayotte, in the southwestern Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa, is France’s poorest island and the poorest territory in the European Union. It has a population of just over 300,000 spread over two main islands.

Bieuville said the worst devastation had been seen in the slums of metal shacks and informal structures that mark much of Mayotte. Referring to the official death toll so far, he said “this figure is not plausible when you see the images of the slums.”

“I think the human toll is much higher,” he added.

Chido blew through the southwestern Indian Ocean on Friday and Saturday, also affecting the nearby islands of Comoros and Madagascar. Mayotte was directly in the cyclone’s path, though, and took the brunt. Chido brought winds in excess of 220 kph (136 mph), according to the French weather service, making it a category 4 cyclone, the second strongest on the scale.

Later, Chido made landfall in Mozambique on the African mainland and there were fears for more than 2 million people in the country’s north who could be impacted, according to authorities there.

French President Emmanuel Macron said his “thoughts” were with the Mayotte people and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau was due to travel to Mayotte on Monday. Retailleau had warned Saturday night after an emergency meeting in Paris that the death toll “will be high,” while new Prime Minister François Bayrou, who took office on Friday, said infrastructure had been severely damaged or destroyed across Mayotte.

Pope Francis offered prayers for the victims while on a visit Sunday to the French Mediterranean island of Corsica.

Rescuers and firefighters were sent from France and the nearby French territory of Reunion and supplies were also rushed in on military aircraft and ships. Damage to the airport’s control tower meant only military aircraft were able to fly in.

Patrice Latron, the prefect of Reunion, said authorities aim to establish an air and sea bridge from Reunion to Mayotte. About 800 more rescuers were to be sent in the coming days and more than 80 tons of supplies had been flown in or were on their way by ship. Some of the priorities were restoring electricity and access to drinking water, Latron said.

The French Interior Ministry said 1,600 police and gendarmerie officers have been deployed to “help the population and prevent potential looting.”

In some parts of Mayotte, entire neighborhoods of metal shacks and huts were flattened, while residents reported trees had been uprooted, boats flipped or sunk and many areas were without power.

Chad Youyou, a resident in Hamjago in the north of the island, posted videos on Facebook showing the extensive damage in his village and across the surrounding fields and hills, where almost every tree had been leveled.

“Mayotte is destroyed … we are destroyed,” he said.

Chido continued its eastern trajectory and into northern Mozambique where it continued to cause serious damage, while farther inland landlocked Malawi and Zimbabwe warned they might have to evacuate people because of flooding.

In Mozambique, UNICEF said Cabo Delgado province, home to around 2 million people, was the first region to be hit and many homes, schools and health facilities have been partially or completely destroyed.

UNICEF Mozambique spokesman Guy Taylor said that communities faced the prospect of being cut off from schools and health facilities for weeks and Mozambique authorities warned there was a high danger of landslides.

December through to March is cyclone season in the southwestern Indian Ocean and southern Africa has been pummeled by a series of strong ones in recent years. Cyclone Idai in 2019 killed more than 1,300 people, mostly in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Cyclone Freddy left more than 1,000 dead across several countries in the Indian Ocean and southern Africa last year.

The cyclones bring the risk of flooding and landslides, but also stagnant pools of water may later spark deadly outbreaks of the waterborne disease cholera as well as dengue fever and malaria.

Studies say the cyclones are getting worse because of climate change. They can leave poor countries in Africa, which contribute a tiny amount to global warming, having to deal with large humanitarian crises, underlining their call for more help from rich nations to deal with the impact of climate change.

An entire generation of Syrians has never known freedom and so when it swept over them, last Sunday, there was shock, then joy, and a desperate hope that it might last. Damascus is a city nearly 5,000 years old. But over this decade the war has seemed like the end of civilization. Half a million Syrians are dead. Thirteen million have been forced from their homes. This past week we traveled 300 miles on the road to Damascus to meet a people awakening from 50 years of dictatorship.        

Take the road to Damascus from the east and you find the suburb of Ein Tarma. The outskirts of one of the great cities of history has been bombed into the stone age. This was President Bashar al-Assad’s answer to mostly unarmed protests that began in 2011. Many who rose against Assad then, are still here. That’s the Zidane family.

Mohammed Saeed Zidane (in Arabic with Pelley translation): We were living here in peace. When we just demanded freedom and to be able to earn our daily bread, the Assad regime started bombing us.

Mohammed Saeed Zidane and his wife Nihal have lived here two years.

Scott Pelley: When you came back here after the shelling what did you see, what did you think?

Nihal Al-Alawi (in Arabic with Pelley translation): We couldn’t hold back our tears when we came back here. We’re not nomads. But what could we do?

No electricity, no running water. Fifteen families in the Zidane building alone. Six flights up, 70-year-old Najah Zidane burns rags to cook—there’s no fuel, no trees. The ceiling looks exhausted and winter comes this week. 

We’d like to show you the immensity. But we can’t because the ruins run for miles in every direction. And this is what you would see in most every Syrian city. To stay in power, Assad left his people to starve. so Mohammed Zidane built a furrow from broken bricks to farm radishes, spring onions and coriander. 

Scott Pelley: When you first heard that Assad was gone. Could you believe it?

Mohammed Saeed Zidane (in Arabic with Pelley translation): We felt like everyone else, like we were in a bad dream and finally woke up!

Nihal Al-Alawi (in Arabic with Pelley translation): SHE SAID We’re still in shock. Is he gone for real?

On the road, the signposts of history tell the backstory. Hafez al-Assad, the father, ruled from 1970. The bullet holes give you a sense of how he’s remembered. 

Then, in the year 2000, the son, Bashar, continued the brutal police state. 

We’ve been covering the civil war for 12 years. It began with an exodus of millions — at the time — the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since World War II. 

This berm marks the border between Syria and Jordan. The refugees that we ran into were coming across the top of the berm and turning themselves in to the safety of the Jordanian border officers here.

We reported on the relentless bombardment of civilians and the rescue work of Syrians known as the White Helmets … 

…they’re civil defense volunteers who have given thousands a second chance at life. 

We covered Assad’s 2013 nerve gas and chemical attacks that killed an estimated 1,400 civilians. 

By 2015, Russia and Iran had joined the war to prop up Assad’s forces. Russian airstrikes saved Assad. And we saw bombed hospitals in rebel territory—a war crime.

Everyone’s afraid of being beside a hospital because they know the hospital is going to be a target in an airstrike.  

And with half a million Syrians dead, we met a generation of orphans. 

Last year, we reported on Syrians left destitute, by a massive earthquake in rebel territory.

Until this fall, the rebels had been cornered in the north. Assad had all but won the war. But this month, his allies abandoned him. Vladimir Putin had exhausted Russian forces in Ukraine. Iran was fighting Israel. So three weeks ago, the rebels saw the chance and swept through the major cities to Damascus. Assad’s army, hollowed out by corruption, simply ran away. The dictator fled to Moscow. 

We found nearly all you need to know about Assad’s rule in examination room two at Damascus Hospital. These corpses are Assad’s prisoners from a notorious jail. Dr. Ayman Nasser told us that he received 35 bodies.

Dr. Ayman Nasser (in Arabic with Pelley translation): There is one with severe signs of torture. HE SAID Many of the bodies show signs of malnutrition or lack of oxygen from overcrowding in the places where they were kept. The cause of death was most likely multiple organ failure caused by malnutrition.

Starved to death in a prison. They were the last to die of untold thousands of political opponents who vanished into Assad’s jails over the decades. When word spread on Facebook that 35 were here, the desperate came searching for the damned.

Scott Pelley: Who are you looking for?

Fayza Hussein al-Ali’s son was arrested.  

Fayza Hussein al-Ali (in Arabic with Pelley translation): There are so many like my son. From our village alone, about 70 prisoners. We are drowning in sorrow; our hearts are burning. I am like every mother here, crushed by pain every day  The regime killed two of my sons.  One was killed by a sniper for no reason. The other died rescuing survivors from airstrikes when planes bombed them again. And he had a girl and a boy.

Scott Pelley: Who are you looking for?

Susan al-Tunji (in Arabic with Pelley translation): My son, SUSAN AL-TUNJI TOLD US.

Like many, she received a death certificate from the prison years ago, but no body—no proof.

Scott Pelley: How long has he been missing? 

Susan al-Tunji (in Arabic with Pelley translation): Twelve years. I pray I find him. Even if he is dead, it’s OK, just give me the body. All I want is to find some rest.

Forensic pathologists compare photos, and teeth…this doctor asks a relative…

Scott Pelley: Do you have a picture of him smiling? 

In this way, they have identified 18 so far. Dr. Nasser told us, 

Dr. Ayman Nasser (in Arabic with Pelley translation): We empathize and we do our best to help. But the pressure from the families is overwhelming,

We saw that when we met the rage of people who have never known justice.  

Taghreed al-Badawi’s son disappeared 12 years ago 

Taghreed al-Badawi (in Arabic with Pelley translation): [Assad] is a war criminal. Someone like him should die like a dog. He and the Assad family should be executed for the horrors we now see.

Scott Pelley: Who is this, sir?

Fauwaz al-Khatib (in Arabic with Pelley translation): This is my son, HE TOLD US, ARRESTED IN 2013 

Fauwaz al-Khatib (in Arabic with Pelley translation) They took him at a checkpoint. He was driving a bus for a living. 

Scott Pelley: Who is this? 

Rama Al-Buka’e: My brother. 

Scott Pelley: Show me, this is your brother? What is his name?

In 2012, her brother was arrested on his way to a store.

Rama Al-Buka’e (in Arabic with Pelley translation): They gave us his ID card and told my mother never to ask about him again. They are a bunch of butchers.

Scott Pelley: Who is this?

Al-Shouha: My brother. 

Scott Pelley: And how long has he been missing?

Al-Shouha: Thirteen years now, Sednaya. 

Scott Pelley: Thirteen years in the prison?  You did not find him here?

Al-Shouha: No.

Scott Pelley: Do you have hope that you will find him?

Al-Shouha (in Arabic with Pelley translation) We do have hope, HE SAID, God willing.

Hope and apprehension are spilling into the streets of Damascus. Most of this city of about two and a half million people is intact because this was the dictator’s stronghold. No one under the age of 54 has ever known freedom, has ever been able to speak of politics above a whisper. That’s a tough memory to break. One man told us, “We got Assad out of Syria now we have to get him out of us.” 

There was joy in the crowd headed for Friday prayers. 75 percent of Syrians are from the largest branch of Islam—the Sunnis. And the rebel leaders are Sunni fundamentalists. But no one knows yet how minority Muslim sects and Christians will be protected.

The leader of the rebels is 42-year-old Ahmed al-Aharaa. In 2013 the U.S. named him a terrorist and, later, put a $10 million bounty on his head. But so far, al-Sharaa has kept order—there’s little sign of destruction, looting or reprisals and government workers are on the job. The people do not know yet how they will be governed. Peace seems to be in the hearts of many. But, the shooting hasn’t stopped entirely.

Israel, last week, grabbed the chance to bomb what’s left of Syria’s military. The U.S. is hitting remnants of ISIS terrorists in central Syria. As for Russia, satellite pictures of its major naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, now reveal that the ships are gone.  

Back where we began, in the Damascus suburb Ein Tarma, we saw the immensity of what lies ahead. It will take hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild Syria and Syria is destitute. Mohammed Zidane and his wife are resigned to live here. Besides, a new home is not what they want the most. They want their 39-year-old son. In 2012, he was stopped at an Assad regime checkpoint and they never heard from him again. 

Scott Pelley: What does that mean for your lives now that Assad is gone?

Mohammed Saeed Zidane (in Arabic with Pelley translation): This feels like a new birth, a new beginning. Though my hair has turned gray, and my time has passed, we feel, thank God, young again. 

Nihal Al-Alawi (in Arabic with Pelley translation): We hope, by the hands of our young people, God willing, it will be better than it was before.

A new Syria is likely to be built by the kind of people who look out on despair…and somehow see a future. Experience tells Syrians they have no reason to hope that freedom will last—and yet, that hope endures. 

Produced by Nicole Young, Kristin Steve and Aaron Weisz. Associate producers, Alex Ortiz and Ian Flickinger. Broadcast associates, Michelle Karim and Georgia Rosenberg. Edited by Peter M. Berman. Assistant editor, Aisha Crespo.

In the days since former President Bashar al-Assad’s fall, Syrians have begun the anguished search for family members who vanished under the dictator’s regime. 

Mohammed Saeed Zidane and his wife live in the bombed-out Ein Tarma suburb of Damascus, struggling to get by, but a new home is not what they want most. They want their 39-year-old son back; he disappeared in 2012 after being stopped at an Assad checkpoint. 

His parents say they have never heard from him again. Still, they have hope for the future in Syria. 

“This feels like a new birth, a new beginning,”  Mohammed said. “Though my hair has turned gray and my time has passed, we feel, thank God, young again.”

Syria’s years under Assad 

An entire generation of Syrians has never known freedom. Since the civil war began in 2011, an estimated 500,000 Syrians have been killed in the conflict and 13 million have been forced from their homes. 

Ein Tarma was heavily bombed.

“We were living here in peace,” Zidane said. “When we just demanded freedom and to be able to earn our daily bread, the Assad regime started bombing us.”

His wife said they couldn’t hold back their tears when they saw the destruction in Ein Tarma. In one devastated building, there was no electricity or running water, no trees or fuel. The ruins run for miles in every direction. 

Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s father, ruled Syria starting in 1970. Bashar al-Assad took over in 2000, and continued to run Syria as a brutal police state.

Throughout the civil war, 60 Minutes reported on the exodus of millions. 60 Minutes reported on the relentless bombardment of civilians and the rescue work of Syrians known as the White Helmets, civil defense volunteers who’ve given thousands a second chance at life. 60 Minutes also reported on Assad’s 2013 nerve gas and chemical attacks that killed an estimated 1,400 civilians.

By 2015, Russia and Iran had joined the war to prop up Assad’s forces. Russian airstrikes saved Assad, while hospitals in rebel territory were bombed.

60 Minute  also met a generation of children orphaned by the war. Last year, Scott Pelley reported on Syrians left destitute by a massive earthquake in rebel territory.

The fall of Assad and the search for victims

Until this fall, the rebels had been cornered in the north. It appeared that Assad had won the war.  But this month, his allies abandoned him. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces were tied up with his invasion of Ukraine. Iran was distracted by conflict with Israel.  So, three weeks ago, the rebels saw an opening and swept through major cities on the way to Damascus. Assad’s army  collapsed and ran away. Syrian President Bashar al Assad  fled to Moscow. 

The Zidane family was shocked by the fall of Assad. 

“We felt like everyone else, like we were in a bad dream and finally woke up,” Mohammed said.

In examination room two of Damascus Hospital following the collapse of Assad’s regime, Dr. Ayman Nassar received 35 bodies from a notorious jail where Assad’s prisoners were tortured and executed. 

“There is one with severe signs of torture,” he said. “Many of the bodies showed signs of malnutrition or lack of oxygen from overcrowding in the places where they were kept. The cause of death was most likely multiple organ failure caused by malnutrition.”

They were the last of untold thousands of Assad’s political opponents to die over the decades — people who went into his jails and vanished. When word spread of the bodies at the hospital, desperate Syrians came searching for answers. 

Fayza Hussein al-Ali’s son had been among those arrested under Assad’s rule.

“There are so many like my son. From our village alone, about 70 prisoners,” she said. “We are drowning in sorrow; our hearts are burning. I am like every mother here, crushed by pain every day.”

The regime killed two of her other sons, she said. One, according to her, was killed by a sniper for no reason. The second, a parent himself, died while rescuing people during airstrikes. 

Susan al-Tunji is also looking for her son. Like many, she received a death certificate from the prison years ago, but no remains.

“I pray I find him,” she said. “Even if he is dead, it’s OK, just give me the body. All I want is to find some rest.”

Forensic pathologists at the hospital compare photos and teeth. In this way, they’ve identified 18 victims so far, Dr. Nasser said. 

“We empathize and do our best to help,” Dr. Nasser said. “But the pressure from the families is overwhelming.”

In the streets of Syria, parents carry photos of their children. Taghreed al-Badawi’s son disappeared 12 years ago. She calls Assad a war criminal. 

Others, like Rama Al-Buka’e, carry photos of lost siblings. Rama Al-Buka’e’s brother was arrested in 2012 while on his way to a store. 

“They gave us his ID card and told my mother never to ask about him again,” Al-Buka’e said. “They are a bunch of butchers.”

Mohammed Al-Shouha’s brother has been missing for 13 years. He hasn’t found his brother yet, but still hopes to. 

“God willing,” Al-Shouha said. 

Hopes, apprehension about the future in Syria

Hope and apprehension are filling the streets of Damascus and its 2.5 million residents. Most of the 5,000-year-old city is intact because it was Assad’s stronghold.

“We got Assad out of Syria,” one man said.  “Now we must get him out of us.” 

Joyful crowds headed for prayers last Friday. About 75% of Syrians are Sunni Muslims, the largest branch of Islam. The rebels are Sunni-led, and no one knows how they’ll govern.

The leader of the Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, is 42-year-old Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who recently reverted to using his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa. In 2013, the U.S. named him a terrorist and, later, put a $10 million bounty on him.

So far, he has kept order. There’s little sign of destruction, looting or reprisals, and government workers are on the job. The Syrian people do not know yet how they will be governed. Peace seems to be in the hearts of many, but the violence hasn’t stopped entirely. 

Israel, last week, grabbed the chance to bomb what’s left of Syria’s military, while the U.S. is hitting remnants of Islamic State terrorists in central Syria. As for Russia, recent satellite pictures of its major naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast now reveal that its ships are gone. 

The immensity of what lies ahead is clear. It will take hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild a destitute Syria. 

“We hope, by the hands of our young people, God willing, it will be better than it was before,” Nihal al-Alawi said from her destroyed home in Ein Tarma.