Fourteen individuals alleged to have connections with migrant-smuggling networks are standing trial in France over a deadly 2021 boat disaster in the English Channel that left at least 31 people dead.
The defendants appeared before a French court on Tuesday in connection with the November 24, 2021 tragedy, when an overcrowded inflatable boat carrying migrants from France towards Britain sank during the crossing.
Authorities confirmed that 27 people lost their lives in the disaster, while four others remain unaccounted for and are presumed missing.
The victims were between the ages of seven and 46 and were largely Iraqi Kurds. Others came from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Egypt and Vietnam, with a seven-year-old child among those who died.
Only two passengers survived the sinking — a Somali national and an Iraqi national — making the incident one of the deadliest migrant tragedies ever recorded in the Channel.
