The Utopia 56 migrant aid association chose the legal route, a month after the tragedy that occurred on the night of November 23 to 24.
According to France Info and Le Monde, after the death of 27 migrants in the Channel, the collective decided to file a complaint against the Maritime Prefect of the Channel for “manslaughter” and “failure to provide assistance”.
The rescuers of the Cross (Regional Operational Surveillance and Rescue Center), as well as the British Coast Guard are also targeted by this complaint.
Read alsoMigrants dead in the English Channel: chronicle of a dreaded shipwreck
These 27 migrants, including two minors, were trying to cross the Channel and "were killed, despite appeals to the English and French rescue services", denounces this text sent to the Paris prosecutor on December 17.
After the tragedy, two survivors assured a Kurdish media that while their boat was in danger, they had contacted emergency services on both sides of the Channel several times, but no one intervened.
"Determine the responsibilities of the French and British helpers"
With the World, the lawyer of Utopia 56, Emmanuel Daoud, affirms that the association wishes "that investigations be carried out in order to determine the responsibilities of the French and British rescue services in this tragedy", estimating that this shipwreck had place "despite appeals to the English and French rescue services".
The newspaper reveals that a similar complaint was lodged in London by families of victims from Iraqi Kurdistan.
Utopia 56 also assures in its complaint that the rescuers of the two countries had already returned the ball, without intervening, three days before this drowning, for similar facts which did not then make a victim.
26 victims identified
The Paris prosecutor announced last week that 26 of the 27 victims had been identified. Among them are sixteen Iraqi Kurds "including four women aged 22 to 46, a 16 year old teenager, a 7 year old child and ten men aged 19 to 37". A "23 year old Kurd from Iran", "three Ethiopians, including two women aged 22 and 25 and a man aged 46, a Somali woman aged 33, four Afghan men aged 24 to 40 and an Egyptian man from 20 years ”, have also been identified.
In order to shed light on this tragedy, an investigation, entrusted to the National Jurisdiction against Organized Crime (JUNALCO), was opened for
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involuntary homicides, assistance with the entry, movement or illegal stay of a foreigner in France in an organized gang, trafficking in human beings in an organized gang and participation in a criminal association ”.
