A covered reception hall, camp beds in a mess and mobile toilets urgently transported: the 303 Indian passengers, including minors, of the flight grounded since Thursday in Vatry (Marne) on suspicion of “human trafficking “, spent their second night confined in the airport. Among these passengers are “13 unaccompanied minors, as well as accompanied minors”, according to the department’s civil protection, a figure not confirmed by the authorities. Their ages “range from a 21-month-old baby to a 17-year-old teenager.”
This plane, an Airbus A340 from the Romanian company Legend Airlines, was initially supposed to connect Dubai (United Arab Emirates) to Managua, capital of Nicaragua. But what was only supposed to be a technical stopover on the runway of the small Vatry airport, 150 kilometers east of Paris, has been transformed since Thursday afternoon into a long immobilization, after an “anonymous report” according to which passengers were “likely to be victims of human trafficking” in an organized gang, the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP on Friday.
The passengers of this plane are still confined on Saturday morning in the airport reception hall, noted an AFP journalist. They have remained there since Thursday evening, the place having been transformed by prefectural decree into a waiting area for foreigners. Two of them were in police custody on Friday evening.
Crew auditioned
The investigation, carried out by the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime (Junalco), aims to “verify whether any elements would corroborate” suspicions of human trafficking, according to the prosecution. Investigators have verified the identity of passengers and cabin crew and are verifying the “conditions and objectives of transport” of these people, he said. The thirty members of the crew, 15 for the Dubai-Vatry connection and 14 or 15 for the Vatry-Managua route, “were interviewed and authorized to leave freely, and to return home if they wish”, told AFP Liliana Bakayoko, who presents herself as the airline’s lawyer.
Legend Airlines “has only carried out a few flights on this route, always for the same non-European customer”, she added, specifying that the company intends to “file a civil suit if proceedings are initiated by the ministry public, or file a complaint” otherwise. Tarpaulins were installed in front of the bay windows of the airport reception hall, as well as on nearby administrative buildings. Access remains blocked by the police and the gendarmerie on Saturday morning, noted an AFP journalist.
“Consular access”
According to a source close to the matter, the Indian passengers, probably workers in the United Arab Emirates, could have planned to go to Central America in order to then try to enter the United States or Canada illegally. The law provides that if he arrives in France by plane and is refused boarding to his country of destination, a foreigner can be kept in a waiting zone for a maximum of four days by the border police.
This retention can then be extended by eight days by a detention and liberty judge (JLD), then by an additional eight days exceptionally. At most, depending on the appeals, retention in the reception area can reach 26 days. The Indian embassy in France indicated on Friday on X, formerly Twitter, that it had “obtained consular access” and “ensured the well-being of passengers”. Showers and beds were sent by the department’s civil protection. Mobile toilets have also been deployed, noted an AFP journalist.
The plane, completely white and without the name of any company, is still immobilized on the tarmac on Saturday morning. According to the specialized site Flightradar, Legend Airlines is a small company whose fleet is made up of four planes, including two A340-313s.
Vatry airport welcomed 62,000 passengers in 2022, mainly via low-cost airlines, according to the Union of French Airports.