Nine men have been charged in France specifically with “manslaughter” and five of them jailed in the investigation into the migrant sinking in the English Channel that killed 27 people in November, a justice source told AFP on Friday.
“Nine men between the ages of 21 and 41” brought before an investigating judge on Thursday were charged “in particular with manslaughter, negligent bodily harm, endangering the life of others, criminal association and aiding and abetting illegal entry, movement and residence”. said this forensic source.
“Five of them were remanded in custody and four under judicial supervision,” she continued.
They are suspected of being involved, to varying degrees, as drivers, smugglers or lodgers in particular in an Afghan illegal immigration network linked to the sinking, according to a source familiar with the matter.
A tenth person had already been charged and arrested in these court investigations on Wednesday.
A total of 15 people – 13 men and two women – were arrested on Sunday and Monday, according to the daily newspaper “Le Parisien” and Radio RTL.
Five had been released without charge by that time.
27 migrants aged between 7 and 46 – 16 Kurds from Iraq, one Kurd from Iran, 4 Afghans, 3 Ethiopians, one Somali, one Egyptian and one Vietnamese – died when their rubber dinghy sank off Calais on November 24, when she tried to reach Great Britain.
Only two passengers, an Iraqi Kurd and a Sudanese, were rescued.
This shipwreck, the deadliest since migrants attempted to cross the Channel, had drawn attention in Europe and reignited tensions between France and the UK.
According to the Home Office, attempts by migrants to illegally cross the Channel to reach Britain’s shores exploded in the first half of 2022, after an already record-breaking 2021.
Between January 1 and June 13, 2022, “777 crossing events and crossing attempts in ‘small boats’ with 20,132 candidates (+68% compared to the same period in 2021)” were registered by the authorities.
In 2021, these attempted crossings, generally with inflatable boats departing from the north coast of France between Calais and Dunkirk, had reached a “record”, with 52,000 people attempting and 28,000 migrants succeeding, according to the Home Office released January.
According to the maritime prefecture, a total of 38 migrants died trying to reach England by sea from the north coast of France in 2021, including 27 in the sinking on November 24.