Three years have passed since 27 people died in the deadliest migrant shipwreck in the English Channel. A tragedy commemorated this year when nearly 100 others died trying to reach England from France, including at least 71 in 2024.
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Saturday evening, more than 200 people gathered for a commemorative march in the streets of Dunkirk (North), at the end of which 31 white roses were thrown into the sea. As many flowers as victims and missing persons found on the beach of this northern city on November 24, 2021. That day, twenty-seven bodies will be found after what is still the worst shipwreck in the Channel today. The victims are sixteen Kurds ofIraqa Kurd fromIranfour Afghans, three Ethiopians, a Somali, an Egyptian and a Vietnamese. Among the victims: seven women, a 16-year-old teenager and a 7-year-old girl.
The tragedy took place on the night of November 23 to 24, 2021. “ Please help me “, implores a migrant aboard a canoe around 2 a.m. during communication with French rescuers. “ In the calls, we heard screaming, crying, people indicating that the boat was broken », adds Jessica Lescs, lawyer for three members of a victim’s family and two associations, Utopia 56 and the Human Rights League.Man.
At the time the boat was located in French waters, 1.1 kilometers from English waters, according to elements of the investigation recalled by the Court of Appeal of Paris in a decision rendered on October 2, this then makes “ several tens of minutes already » that the people on board ask for help.
But despite the boat’s multiple calls for French and British help, ” no means will be involved » by the Regional Operational Surveillance and Rescue Center (Cross) Gris-Nez (Pas-de-Calais).
Read on InfoMigrantsFrance: on the northern coast, migrants “live in great precariousness and lack everything”
Waiting for justice
Three years after the tragedy, the investigation is still underway and a trial could begin at the end of 2025. Eleven smugglers, some of whom arrested abroad, will have to explain themselves, but also, exceptionally, seven French soldiers.
Five CROSS members on site that night were summoned for not having deployed emergency means despite calls from the exiles that night. Since then, the soldiers have taken legal action to have their case referred to a military tribunal but their request was rejected at the beginning of October.
They will therefore appear alongside the smugglers during their trial. A victory for Emmanuel Daoud, one of the lawyers of the civil party. He notably defends the family of an Ethiopian victim. “ Analyze the succession of events between the smugglers, the recruitment of migrants, the departure of the boat, the distress calls, the reactions of the military, all of that, we will have it in front of our eyes”explains the lawyer who is counting on a trial at the end of 2025 – beginning of 2026, who adds: “And that is extraordinary because we can dissect all the elements that can explain the occurrence of this tragedy so that it does not happen again “.
Deadly road
Because three years after this shipwreck, tens of thousands of migrants – more than 33,000 this year according to the British authorities – continue to reach England from France each year by “small boats”, a phenomenon that appeared in 2018 in response to the increasingly strong locking of access to the Channel Tunnel and the port of Calais.
And the crossings are increasingly perilous, on overloaded boats on board whose passengers rarely have life jackets. This year, at least 71 people have lost their lives during crossing attempts, according to the Pas-de-Calais prefecture. A record number. In the newspaper The Tribunesixteen leaders of migrant aid associations and NGOs, ask themselves: “ How many deaths will it take in the Channel before the French and British states take responsibility? “.
“These deaths are neither the result of chance nor simple collateral damage. They are the direct consequences of the migration policies knowingly put in place by the French and British public authorities to make the life of exiles on the northern coast impossible.they add.