United Kingdom: a man arrested in the case of the sinking of 27 dead migrants in the English Channel

MISE À DAY

A 32-year-old man was arrested in the UK on Tuesday as part of the investigation into the November 2021 deaths of 27 migrants who were shipwrecked while crossing the English Channel on a rubber boat , announced the British crime agency (NCA). 

Harem Ahmed Abwbaker has been arrested in the southwest of England and “is suspected of be a member of the organized crime group that conspired to transport the migrants to the UK on a small boat,” the NCA said in a statement.

On November 24, 2021, 27 migrants aged between seven and 46 – 16 Kurds from Iraq, one Kurd from Iran, four Afghans, three Ethiopians, one Somali, one Egyptian and one Vietnamese – died in the sinking of their inflatable boat. off Calais, as they attempted to reach Great Britain.

Only two passengers, an Iraqi Kurd and a Sudanese, were able to be rescued.

Mr. Abwbaker was found and arrested by British authorities with the help of France, the NCA statement said. He “will remain in detention to appear tomorrow before the court of Westminster, where the extradition procedure will begin”.

On the French side, ten alleged members of the network of smugglers at the origin of the sinking have been arrested. examination this summer.

In a recent article in mid-November, the French newspaper Le Monde claims that the passengers of the boat had called the French authorities about fifteen times to ask for help, in vain .

The issue of migrant crossings in the Channel has been the subject of tension between Paris and London, but the two countries signed an agreement in mid-November, including an envelope of 72.2 million euros. euros that the British will have to pay in 2022-2023 to France to increase from 800 to 900 the number of police and gendarmes on French beaches, from where migrants leave.

More than 40,000 migrants arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel in small craft this year, a record .