PARIS, Sept 30 (Reuters) – A Paris court on Wednesday found six men guilty of manslaughter over the drowning of more than 30 people in the Channel five years ago, the worst disaster on record involving migrants in the narrow seaway separating France and Britain.
Seven other men were found guilty of lesser smuggling charges with varying degrees of seriousness, including facilitating illegal immigration as part of an organised gang and criminal conspiracy.
The migrants perished after their overloaded dinghy deflated as they made the crossing across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
A French fishing vessel alerted emergency services after spotting bodies floating in the waters off the French coast near Calais in November 2021. Twenty-seven victims were recovered, while at least four others were never found. Only two men survived.
Sentences for the six men found guilty of manslaughter ranged from six to 10 years in prison. For others, sentences ranged from six months suspended to four years in prison. One man was found innocent.
The victims were mainly Iraqi Kurds, but also included Afghans, Ethiopians, an Egyptian, a Somali national, an Iranian Kurd and a Vietnamese national.
Relatives of some victims described during the trial the anguish provoked by the disaster.
Zana Mamand Muhammad, whose brother Twana, 18 at the time, was never recovered after the disaster, told the court: “I live with the uncertainty of discovering some information about his disappearance, a body, a grave.”
“I am living with this constant pain,” he said crying and holding a picture of his brother.
(Reporting by Juliette Jabkhiro and Inti Landauro; editing by Richard Lough)
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