They were 27. Aged between 7 and 46, they were trying to reach a world they hoped would be better by taking makeshift boats to cross the English Channel and reach England.
All perished in the icy waters of the Channel on November 24.
Among them sixteen Iraqis, four Afghans, three Ethiopians, one Egyptian, one Iranian, one Somali and one Vietnamese.
The first to be identified was Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin.
This 24-year-old Iraqi Kurd wanted to join her fiancé in Portsmouth in the south of England.
The student was planning to surprise her lover and had undertaken the crossing with a relative.
As the dinghy began to take on water and deflate, the couple chatted on Snapchat, British media reported.
Maryam, whom her relatives nicknamed “Baran”, reassured her fiancé: the passengers were trying to empty the water and help was on the way.
The two lovers never saw each other again.
When her death was announced, one of her relatives confided to the BBC: “She was so happy when she left Kurdistan, she couldn't believe that she was finally going to find her husband (…) She was trying to live a better life.
She chose the UK but she died.
»
Maryam wished to join her fiancé in Portsmouth, in the south of England.
DR
Kazhall Ahmad, 46, was also an Iraqi Kurd.
Originally from Erbil, this teacher had boarded with her three children: Hadia, 22, Mubin, 16 and Hasti, 7.
All four had survived several weeks in the camps of Grande-Synthe, before embarking.
Abdul, an Afghan photographer, had met her a few weeks before her disappearance: “She was desperately looking for water, food for her children, the former refugee had told La Voix du Nord.
She explained to me that she wanted to go to England, she was exhausted and had not slept for several days.
She was very angry with the politicians who were the cause, according to her, of her situation.
»
Two Afghan cousins who dreamed of a new life
Mohammad Naeem Mayar was planning to bring his four children to the UK.
DR
There was Mohammad Naeem Mayar, an Afghan father in his forties, who was making his third attempt to reach the United Kingdom, where he later intended to bring his four children.
According to the Voice of the North, he had been a teacher in a school for English girls in 2009. But his visa expired, he had been forced to return to Herat in the northwest of Afghanistan.
Husain, 24, had obtained a residence permit in Italy but had not found a job.
DR
Husain Tanha and his cousin Amanullah Omakil, two Afghan cousins, dreamed of a new life.
The latter had the status of unaccompanied minor upon his arrival in France.
Supported by Childhood Social Assistance (ASE), traces the newspaper Liberation, he had found a small job in a pizzeria in Dunkirk (North).
His eldest, aged 24, had obtained a residence permit for him in Italy but had never found a job there.
The young man had finally resolved to join his cousin in the North to organize their crossing there.
The two cousins drowned in the English Channel.