Trial opens in France over deadliest Channel migrant crossing disaster

Email: online@newsofbahrain.com

PARIS: Fourteen people suspected of ties to human trafficking networks went on trial in France on Tuesday over the November 2021 Channel disaster that claimed at least 31 lives in the deadliest accident involving asylum seekers attempting to cross to Britain.

The tragedy resulted in 27 confirmed deaths and four missing passengers, including a young seven-year-old child. The victims were mostly Iraqi Kurds alongside Afghan, Ethiopian, Egyptian, and Vietnamese nationals, with only two men surviving after falling overboard in open waters.

French prosecutors charged the defendants, most of whom were born in Afghanistan, with manslaughter and facilitating illegal immigration as an organized group.

Authorities accused them of supplying an uncertified, heavily overcrowded dinghy unfit for open sea navigation and lacking adequate life jackets.

Desperate passengers made roughly a dozen distress calls to French and British emergency rescue services before the boat deflated, but nearly 12 hours passed before a local fishing vessel spotted survivors.

Seven French military personnel remain under investigation for failing to render aid.

The landmark three-week trial involves 114 civil parties, with victims' families traveling from Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan to seek justice. 

While defendants claim they were merely fellow migrants, prosecutors maintain they formed a lucrative smuggling network responsible for the tragedy.