2023-12-23 14:27:45
A covered reception hall, camp beds in disarray and mobile toilets sent urgently: the 303 Indian passengers, including minors, of the flight grounded since Thursday December 21 in Vatry (Marne) on suspicion of “human trafficking”, spent their second night confined in the airport. “L’Obs” takes stock of the affair.
• Who are the passengers?
Among these 303 passengers are “13 unaccompanied minors, as well as accompanied minors”, according to the department’s civil protection, a figure not confirmed by the authorities. Their age “ranges from a 21 month old baby to a 17 year old teenager”.
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Their plane, an Airbus A340 from the Romanian company Legend Airlines, was initially scheduled to connect Dubai (United Arab Emirates) to Managua, capital of Nicaragua. But what was only supposed to be a technical stopover on the runway of the small Vatry airport, 150 kilometers east of Paris, has been transformed since Thursday afternoon into a long immobilization, after a “anonymous report” according to which passengers were “likely to be victims of human trafficking” in an organized gang, the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP on Friday.
According to a source close to the matter, the Indian passengers, probably workers in the United Arab Emirates, could have planned to go to Central America in order to then try to enter the United States or Canada illegally.
Vatry airport has been confined for 3 days. A flight from Saudi Arabia is stopped on the tarmac. Around 300 Indians are held in this hall behind the tarpaulins. The police suspect human trafficking of which this group could be victims. @RTLFrance pic.twitter.com/yQBsSvtZ7Z
— Valentin Boissais (@vboissais) December 23, 2023
Twitter – Valentin Boissais on Twitter / X
Passengers are still confined this Saturday morning in the airport reception hall, noted an AFP journalist. They have remained there since Thursday evening, the place having been transformed by prefectural decree into a waiting area for foreigners. Two of them were in police custody on Friday evening.
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• Legend company suspected?
The investigation, carried out by the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime (Junalco), aims to “check if there is any corroborating evidence” suspicion of human trafficking, according to the prosecution. Investigators have verified the identities of passengers and cabin crew and are verifying the “transport conditions and objectives” of these people, he said.
The thirty crew members, 15 for the Dubai-Vatry connection and 14 or 15 for the Vatry-Managua route, “were interviewed and authorized to leave freely, and to return home if they wish”told AFP Liliana Bakayoko, who presents herself as the airline’s lawyer.
Legend Airlines “only made a few flights on this route, always for the same customer” non-European, she added, specifying that the company counts “become a civil party if proceedings are initiated by the public prosecutor, or file a complaint” otherwise.
According to the specialized site Flightradar, Legend Airlines is a small company whose fleet is made up of four planes, including two A340-313s. Vatry airport welcomed 62,000 passengers in 2022, mainly via low-cost airlines, according to the Union of French Airports.
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• How long can their wait last?
The law provides that if he arrives in France by plane and is refused boarding to his country of destination, a foreigner can be kept in a waiting zone for a maximum of four days by the border police.
This retention can then be extended by eight days by a detention and liberty judge (JLD), then by an additional eight days exceptionally. At most, depending on the appeals, retention in the reception area can reach 26 days. The Indian embassy in France indicated on Friday on “obtained consular access” et “ensure the well-being of passengers”.
Showers and beds were sent by the department’s civil protection. Mobile toilets have also been deployed, noted an AFP journalist. The plane, completely white and without the name of any company, is still immobilized on the tarmac this Saturday morning. Tarpaulins have been installed in front of the bay windows of the airport reception hall, as well as on nearby administrative buildings, and access remains blocked by the police and gendarmerie.
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