Migrants drowned in the Channel: ten alleged members of the smuggling network charged

A group of migrants attempting to cross the English Channel in November 2021. © GONZALO FUENTES/REUTERS

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In France, the investigation is accelerating seven months after the sinking of a boat in the Channel, between the French and English coasts.

Twenty-seven migrants had drowned.

After a wave of arrests earlier this week, ten men have been charged.

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They are suspected of having served as drivers, smugglers or lodgers for an Afghan illegal immigration network.

These men aged 21 to 41 were indicted, in particular for manslaughter, endangering the lives of others, or criminal association.

Of the ten, six have been placed in pre-trial detention, the others under judicial supervision.

According to information revealed this Thursday, June 30 by our colleagues from the newspaper

, the suspects are mainly of Pakistani and Afghan origin.

They would have been arrested thanks to the analysis of the mobile phones which were confined in the sector the evening of the tragedy.

Complaint against the maritime prefecture of the Channel

In this case, a French association for the aid of exiles, Utopia 56, also accuses the French and British authorities of not having responded to the distress calls launched from the boat before it sank.

A complaint has been lodged against the maritime prefecture of the Channel, the regional surveillance and rescue center and its British counterparts.

The shipwreck of November 24, 2021 is to date the deadliest in the Channel: twenty-seven dead, Iraqi Kurds, Afghans, Somalis... The youngest of the victims was 7 years old.

►Also read: English Channel: deadliest sinking of a migrant boat since the start of the crossings

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