JUSTICE – The French association for aid to exiles Utopia 56 announced on Monday that it had seized the Paris public prosecutor’s office for acts of “intentional homicide” and “failure to provide assistance”. This decision follows the sinking of a boat off Calais at the end of November.
LCI editorial staff with AFP –
Three weeks after the shipwreck which cost the lives of 27 migrants off the coast of Calais, the French association for exile assistance Utopia 56 announced on Monday that it had lodged a complaint against the French maritime prefect of the Channel but also against the responsible for the Gris-Nez Marc Regional Operational Surveillance and Rescue Center (Cross) and the English maritime rescue services.
This complaint, filed Friday, December 17 with the Paris prosecutor and revealed by Le Monde, targets facts of“homicide and unintentional injury”, “help with irregular entry and stay in an organized group”, and “conspiracy”. The association considers that the people were shipwrecked “despite appeals to the English and French rescue services”, as told by the survivors as well as the relatives of the deceased. “No help would have been given to them immediately”, denounce the complainants in a press release.
All the info on
Migrant crisis: deadly shipwreck off Calais
“All the light” on the shipwreck
In mid-December, the maritime prefecture of the Manche had ruled out that a call from migrants was not dealt with by the sea rescue services and has refused, since, to any new comment. “The conclusions of the Paris prosecutor’s office will establish the facts”, a spokesperson told AFP.
The bodies of 27 migrants – eighteen men, seven women, a 16-year-old teenager and a 7-year-old child, mostly Iraqi Kurds – were recovered on November 24 in the English Channel. Only two men, an Iraqi Kurd and a Sudanese, according to the Interior Ministry, were able to be rescued. According to the migrants, the British and the French had then returned the ball, claiming that the boat was, for the first, in French waters and vice versa.
Read also
- Calais: despite the shipwreck, migrants determined to cross the Channel at all costs
- VIDEO – They get richer on the plight of migrants: an investigation into the networks of smugglers in Calais
Utopia 56 wishes that with this procedure “all light be shed on the circumstances of this shipwreck”. And regrets that the investigation opened in France appears “to focus primarily on the role of smugglers”, while the United Kingdom seems to have launched no investigation.
From January to November 25, 2021, the maritime prefecture recorded 1,281 events linked to sea crossings to the United Kingdom involving 33,083 people. The French authorities rescued 8,284 castaways.
On the same subject
The most read articles
Has Japan Really Recognized that Messenger RNA is “Dangerous to Health”?
LIVE – As in the United States, the Omicron variant now dominant in Denmark
Were 63% of Covid deaths vaccinated, as Philippe de Villiers claims?
Faced with the Omicron variant, the vaccine will not be enough, warns the CEO of BioNTech
In which departments does the Omicron variant circulate the most?
