A covered reception hall, jumbled cots and urgently dispatched portable toilets: More than 300 Indians are still trapped on Saturday at an airport in eastern France, where authorities suspecting “human trafficking” have halted their flight for two days.
• Also read: “Suspicion of human trafficking”: A plane with more than 300 passengers lands in France
Among those passengers are “13 unaccompanied minors as well as accompanied minors,” according to the ministry’s civil protection department, a figure that has not been confirmed by authorities. Their ages “range from a 21-month-old baby to a 17-year-old teenager.”
This aircraft, an Airbus A340 from the Romanian company Legend Airlines, was originally intended to connect Dubai (United Arab Emirates) with Managua, the capital of Nicaragua.
But what was supposed to be just a technical stopover on the runway at the small Vatry airport, 150 kilometers east of Paris, has turned into a long immobilization since Thursday afternoon after an “anonymous report” said passengers were “likely to do so.” “Become a victim of human trafficking” in an organized gang, the Paris public prosecutor's office told the AFP news agency on Friday.
According to a source familiar with the matter, the Indian passengers, believed to be workers in the United Arab Emirates, may have planned to travel to Central America and then attempt to enter the United States or Canada illegally.
Two police officers
The passengers of this plane were still locked in the airport reception hall on Saturday morning, an AFP journalist noted. They have been staying there since Thursday evening as the place was converted into a waiting area for foreigners by prefectural decree.
Two of them were in police custody on Friday evening.
The aim of the investigation is to “check whether any elements corroborate the suspicion of human trafficking,” said the public prosecutor’s office.
Investigators have verified the identities of the passengers and cabin crew and are examining the “conditions of carriage and destinations” of these people, he said.
The thirty crew members, 15 for the Dubai-Vatry route and 14 or 15 for the Vatry-Managua route, “were questioned and allowed to leave freely,” Liliana Bakayoko, who introduced herself as the airline's lawyer, told AFP.
Legend Airlines “operated only a few flights on this route, always for the same non-European customer,” she added, stating that the company intended to “file a civil lawsuit or report in the event of a public prosecutor's initiation.” Otherwise.
The Indian Embassy in France said on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday that it was working towards a “quick resolution of the situation”, adding that “consular staff were on site”.
“Family Zone”
Tarpaulins were placed in front of the bay windows of the airport reception hall and on the administration buildings. Access remained blocked by police and gendarmerie on Saturday morning, an AFP journalist noted.
The law stipulates that a foreigner who arrives in France by plane and is refused boarding to his destination country can be detained by the border police in a waiting area for a maximum of four days.
This detention can be extended by a detention and custodial judge by eight days and, in exceptional cases, by a further eight days. Depending on the objection, the length of stay in the reception area can be a maximum of 26 days.
Passengers were provided with single beds as well as toilets and showers, according to the prefecture, which says a “family zone” has been set up to ensure the privacy of parents and children. “Three meals a day are provided by government agencies,” she added.
The plane, completely white and without a company name, was still on the tarmac on Saturday morning.
According to the specialist website Flightradar, Legend Airlines is a small company whose fleet consists of four aircraft, including two A340-313s.