The China Mail - Trial opens in France over deadliest Channel migrant crossing disaster

The defendants are accused of playing a role in the sinking in which 27 people were confirmed to have died when their inflatable dinghy sank in the early hours of November 24, 2021. Four others are still unaccounted for.

The victims, aged between seven and 46, were mostly Iraqi Kurds but also included Afghans, Ethiopians, Egyptians and Vietnamese nationals.

Only two men, a Somali and an Iraqi, survived the tragedy.

The trial carries particular significance because of the high death toll and the sheer number of civil parties involved, 114 in all, including victims' families.

Some of them travelled from Erbil in Iraq's Kurdistan region to testify.

"This is an important step for them, something that will not give them solace but something that will allow them some recovery as part of this long process of grief," said Thomas Ricard, one of the lawyers for many of the victims' families.

Another lawyer, Emmanuel Daoud, called the proceedings a "trial of greed, cynicism and inhumanity."

On November 24, 2021, a French fishing vessel reported several lifeless bodies floating in the Channel off Calais, close to British waters.

Testimony from the two survivors, who had paid 1,500 euros and 2,750 euros ($1,740 and $3,200) respectively for the crossing, helped investigators partially reconstruct the harrowing events.

According to them, their flimsy boat began to deflate and take on water after several hours at sea.

Passengers fell overboard and drowned one after another, despite making around a dozen desperate calls for help to French and British rescue services.

- French personnel under investigation -

The 14 individuals, most of them born in Afghanistan, face charges including manslaughter and facilitating illegal immigration as part of an organised criminal group.

Two of them are the subject of arrest warrants and will be tried in absentia.

The case is also high-profile because of another highly sensitive strand of the investigation, which is still ongoing.

Seven French military personnel, including rescue workers and sailors, have been under investigation since 2023 for failing to help people in danger.

A UK inquiry released in February found some of the deaths would have been "avoidable" if British and French authorities had acted sooner to rescue those onboard.

Despite several distress calls, it was nearly 12 hours after the first pleas for help before the boat was finally found by a French fishing vessel.

By that time, most of those on board had drowned.

The separate case could lead to another trial.

"Justice must hold accountable everyone who played a role in this tragedy," said lawyer Matthieu Chirez.

Daoud expressed hope that the three-week trial would be an opportunity to see would-be asylum seekers as human beings.

"We must stop treating migrants in this country or elsewhere as offenders and criminals, and instead restore their dignity, their stories, their individuality, their humanity," he said.

Thousands of asylum seekers each year seek to reach Britain from France in search of a better life.

-'Substandard boat'-

Prosecutors have accused the defendants of helping launch a "substandard small boat, uncertified, unfit for navigation on the open sea, overcrowded and lacking appropriate life jackets".

Liability has also been extended to those accused of transporting, housing or accompanying the victims -- actions that formed part of a "chain of successive events" leading to the tragedy, according to investigators.

The defendants have denied being smugglers and disputed their responsibility, or have presented themselves as migrants seeking to make the journey themselves.

However, phone records and location tracking placed several of them near the departure site and linked them to organising crossings to Britain.

W.Tam--ThChM