2023-08-17 00:50:53
They could be involved in a new human drama in the English Channel. Four people were indicted on Wednesday after the deadly shipwreck in the English Channel on Saturday of a migrant boat trying to reach England, during which six Afghans were killed, said a judicial source, confirming information from the World.
These people, suspected in particular of homicide and involuntary injuries, had been placed in police custody on the day of the tragedy. They are two people of Iraqi nationality born in 1980, and two people of Sudanese nationality born in 1994 and 2006, said the Paris prosecutor’s office, which requested their placement in pre-trial detention.
Two investigating judges had been seized earlier in the day to investigate this deadly shipwreck. On Wednesday, the bodies of the victims were still being identified at the Forensic Institute of Lille.
To date, the thirty people rescued in French waters have all been heard by the courts, said the Paris prosecutor’s office, which is collaborating with the British justice system and awaits the return of the hearings of another thirty people, rescued English side.
A lost potential still sought after
The maritime prefecture (Premar) of the Channel and the North Sea was also still looking for a missing potential on Wednesday, after a consolidation of the death toll, some survivors reporting 65 people on board, others 66.
The judicial investigation, under the direction of the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime (Junalco), had in particular been opened for homicides and involuntary injuries and endangerment, offenses both aggravated by the manifestly deliberate violation of an obligation security or caution. These investigations were also launched for aiding illegal stay in an organized gang and association of criminals with a view to committing this offence.
Despite this new shipwreck, the deadliest since the one that occurred in November 2021 during which at least 27 migrants lost their lives, attempts at crossings continued overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday. Until midday, a dozen boats were seen at sea, in calm weather, one of which was rescued and brought back to the French side with around twenty people on board, said a spokeswoman for Premar.
45,000 people made the crossing in 2022
On Saturday, the alert was given around 4:20 a.m. by a merchant ship which contacted the Regional Operational Center for Surveillance and Rescue (Cross) Gris Nez, according to a press release from Premar. Several means were deployed, assures Premar: the public service patrol boat (PSP) Cormoran, which was in operation about fifteen kilometers away, joined the area. It was equipped with a 25-person life raft and a semi-rigid. Then a second patrol boat and a French all-weather canoe, as well as two British ships.
Saturday’s tragedy “is a stark reminder of the dangerousness of these crossings and of the vital importance of dismantling these criminal gangs”, lamented Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday. According to a count made by AFP, more than 100,000 migrants have crossed the Channel since the development of the phenomenon of “small boats”, in 2018, in response to the locking of the port of Calais and the Channel tunnel.
In 2022, a record year, more than 45,000 people made the crossing. Since the beginning of 2023, around 17,000 migrants have arrived in the south of England on board these boats which are often simple inflatables.
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