This is an important first step, which ends in the investigation into the shipwreck that led to the death of 27 migrants on the night of November 24, in the English Channel. Thursday evening, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it had identified the last deceased migrant who was trying to reach the English coasts. He is a 29-year-old man of Vietnamese nationality, said the prosecution, which issued a new burial permit after the one under X issued before he was identified.
The 26 other victims had been identified after the meeting on December 13 of a commission for the identification of victims, thanks to information collected by the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN) and to examinations carried out at the Lille hospital center. . They were sixteen Kurds from Iraq, one Kurd from Iran, three Ethiopians, one Somali, four Afghans and one Egyptian. Seven women, a teenager (16 years old) and a child (7 years old) are among the 27 victims.
The distress calls in question
According to the investigation, the migrants would have left aboard an inflatable boat “at the end of the night” from Loon-Plage, near Grande-Synthe, where many exiles are camping on the coast. Only two men, an Iraqi Kurd and a Sudanese according to the Interior Ministry, were able to be rescued. According to the Iraqi Kurd, 33 people were on board when the smugglers counted them, which would leave another 4 people missing.
The investigation by the National Organized Crime Jurisdiction (Junalco), for “assistance with irregular entry and stay in an organized group”, “homicide and involuntary injuries” and “criminal association”, must in particular determine the conditions of this shipwreck which remain unclear. Questions arise about the appeals that the migrants would have made to the French and English authorities, when their makeshift boat began to sink, according to the testimony of a survivor with the Iraqi Kurdish channel Rudaw.
The Manche maritime prefecture had ruled out that the appeal of migrants in difficulty was not dealt with. Five people suspected of being smugglers were arrested, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, but unrelated to this shipwreck, the deadliest since the migrants tried to cross the Channel. It has caused a stir in Europe and reignited tensions between France and the United Kingdom, as the two countries are already engaged in a standoff over fishing licenses after Brexit.