The Paris prosecutor’s office called, Wednesday 1er December, to be sent to investigators “Any information likely to aid in identification” of the twenty-seven migrants who died in the sinking of their boat in the Channel a week ago. Any useful information can be sent to am-ugivc@gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr, specifies in a press release the public prosecutor of Paris, Laure Beccuau.
On November 24, seventeen men, seven women, two teenagers and a child died in the sinking of their boat, off Calais. Only two men survived, of Somali and Iraqi nationality.
The Gendarmerie Unit for the Identification of Disaster Victims (UGIVC) of the Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie “Ensures the collection of ante-mortem information, obtained from relatives of the victims and associations linked to the castaways, and post-mortem resulting from the examination of the bodies and the highlighting of identifying elements (in particular fingerprints , dental records, DNA samples) “, specifies Mme Beccuau in this press release. The results are then studied during an identification commission, under the authority of the prosecutor, “In order to formally certify the identity of the victims and issue burial permits”.
The National Jurisdiction for Combating Organized Crime, in Paris, dealt with the investigation opened, in particular for involuntary homicides, assistance with the entry, movement or illegal stay of a foreigner in France in an organized group, trafficking in human beings in an organized group and participation in a criminal association. The aim of the investigation is to determine the circumstances of the sinking, to identify the victims and to dismantle the networks of smugglers.
The investigations were entrusted to the research section of the maritime gendarmerie, the central office for the repression of irregular immigration and the employment of foreigners without a title and the mobile research brigade of Coquelles (Pas-de -Calais) of the central border police department.
Open a legal avenue for immigration
This tragedy, the deadliest to have occurred in the Channel, has rekindled tensions between France and the United Kingdom over the fight against the Channel crossings.
The Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, on Monday, November 29, called on the British government to open a legal route for the admission of asylum seekers to its territory. France is not “An auxiliary of the British authorities”, he said during a press conference held after a defense council devoted to migration.
Mr. Darmanin, who reaffirmed the need to respect the Touquet agreements, also called for the negotiation of an agreement on illegal immigration between the European Union and the United Kingdom. “It cannot be a simple agreement to readmit migrants to the territory” French, underlined the Minister of the Interior, while specifying that the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, would write Tuesday to his counterpart, Boris Johnson, to propose an agreement to him.
The day after an intergovernmental meeting in Calais, from which the British had been excluded, Mr. Darmanin also warned the British against any attempt to return migrants who would arrive on their coasts, which would be “An unacceptable red line”. “We will never accept the practice of push-backs at sea”, he assured, because “The United Kingdom is not exempt from international law”.
