(AFP) - Campaign groups for migrants' rights have revealed that an Ethiopian man whose wife and two children were among 27 people who drowned in 2021 when their boat capsized in the English Channel had filed a complaint for damages.
Fikeru Shiferaw's family was on board the inflatable vessel during the early hours of 24 November when it started to take in water and eventually capsized. Two people survived and four remain missing.
Failing to respond
French authorities have been accused of failing to respond to around 15 calls for help. Prosecutors last year charged seven military personnel for failing to assist persons in danger.
Utopia 56 and the French Human Rights League (LDH) said Shiferaw had filed the request for damages with a court in the northern city of Lille.
Nikolai Posner, of Utopia 56, said his group hoped the families of other victims would join the lawsuit which is believed to be the first of its kind since the English Channel became a key route for migrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia attempting to reach England from France.
Legal case
Patrick Baudouin, the LDH president, said his organisation was backing Shiferaw's case with assistance from the legal and social justice group Interet à Agir.
"We're taking part to remind people that these tragedies have a universal scope that we could remedy by ending deadly policies of non-assistance at sea and by working for migration and asylum based on fundamental rights,” said Baudouin.
Le Monde newspaper on Friday said a French inquiry showed that a French military boat patrolling the waters was not monitoring Channel 16, the international distress frequency, on which the British rescue centre had issued "Mayday" calls to help the boat.
Its crew also ignored three distress signals that did make it through via their radio, with one officer saying after the coordinates of the sinking boat were shared that it was on the English side, it said.
Passengers, many of whom were Iraqi Kurds, contacted France's Channel rescue centre at 1.48am on 24 November to say their vessel was deflating and its engine had stopped, Le Monde reported last year.
They sent their locations via WhatsApp around 15 minutes later.
According to one transcript of a telephone conversation seen by the French news agency AFP, a migrant told the French coastguard on the phone: "Please help ... I'm in the water!"
"Yes – but you are in English waters," the coastguard replied.