Four individuals were indicted on Wednesday before being placed in pre-trial detention after the deadly sinking on Saturday in the English Channel of a migrant boat trying to reach England via the Strait of Pas-de-Calais, one of the busiest in the world.
Six Afghan exiles perished. On Wednesday, their bodies were still being identified at the Lille Forensic Institute.
Indicted for manslaughter and manslaughter
Of the four men indicted, two are of Iraqi nationality and were born in 1980. They are “suspected of being part of the illegal immigration network that organized the transport of migrants”. The other two are of Sudanese nationality and born in 1994 and 2006 and are “suspected of having actively participated in the transport of passengers in dangerous conditions, in return for a preferential rate on their own passage”, indicated the public ministry.
They were indicted for manslaughter and involuntary injury by manifestly deliberate violation of an obligation of security or prudence, aiding illegal stay in an organized gang and association of criminals with a view to committing this offence.
The investigations, carried out under the direction of the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime and entrusted since Wednesday to two investigating judges, have “at this stage made it possible to establish that the makeshift boat had suffered engine damage”, explained the prosecution, adding that the dinghy was “torn at sea”, with passengers “for the most part” without life jackets.
Deadliest shipwreck since November 2021
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.
Despite this new shipwreck, the deadliest since the one that occurred in November 2021 during which at least 27 migrants lost their lives, attempts to cross had 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. In the United Kingdom, an AFP photographer noted the arrival of dozens of migrants, including many children and a pregnant woman.
More than 100,000 migrants have crossed the Channel since 2018
Unlike the sinking of November 2021, for which seven soldiers were indicted for failure to assist a person in danger, “it seems that the rescue services intervened as soon as they were notified”, assured a source close to the AFP file.
This sinking had led to a rise in tension between Paris and London and the strengthening of rescue measures and the fight against this migratory traffic. 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.
Since the beginning of 2023, around 17,000 migrants have arrived in the south of England on board these boats, often simple inflatables.