This sinking is the most murderer since migrants try to join England by the sea. Four arrests had been announced by the French authorities as a result of this drama.
Le Monde with AFP and Reuters
They had drowned in the round on the night of November 24th while trying to join the English coast. Twenty-six of the twenty-seven dead those that night were “formally identified”, announced the Paris Prosecution in a statement, Tuesday, December 14th.
The victim identification committee, held on Monday, confirmed “the identity of sixteen Kurdish people of Iraq, including four women aged 22 to 46, a 16-year-old, a 7-year-old child and Ten men aged 19 to 37, as well as that of an Iran Kurdish man of 23 years “, reports the statement. “Thu three Ethiopians have also been identified, including two women aged 22 and 25 and a 46-year-old man, a 33-year-old Somali woman, four Afghan men aged 24 to 40 and an Egyptian 20-year-old man.” One last body still needs to be identified.
Multiplication of crossing attempts
This sinking is the “worst accident”, according to the Maritime Prefecture of the North Channel and the North Sea, since the significant increase in 2018, migratory crossings due to the increasing lock of the port of Calais and Eurotunnel, hitherto borrowed by migrants trying to rally England.
Attempts to migratory crossing of the small boat on board doubled in the last three months, cautioned on November 19, the Maritime Prefect of the North Channel and the North Sea, Philippe Dutrieux. As at November 20, 31,500 migrants had left the coast since the beginning of the year and 7,800 migrants had been saved, he said. According to London, 22,000 migrants have passed the crossing over the first ten months of the year. The British Press Association agency (PA) estimated this figure to more than 25,700, three times more than all year round 2020.
m. Detrieux explained in particular this phenomenon by “the cynicism of the organizations that are behind these passages, which throw in the water of the migrants because it is a company that reports well”. Four arrests had been announced by the French authorities in the wake of the sinking for their assumed involvement in the incident.