Paris court presses defendants over deadliest migrant Channel crossing on record

A Paris court began hearing testimony in the trial over the deadliest known Channel crossing, a 2021 sinking that killed 31 people aboard an overloaded dinghy with a faulty motor and substandard life jackets.

Defendants, including a 36-year-old Iraqi Kurdish man described as the smuggling network's right hand, gave accounts of being drawn into the operation after their own attempts to cross failed. One survivor testified that by dawn he could see the other passengers, including women and children, motionless in the water.

Distress calls went out roughly three hours into the crossing, but neither French nor British rescue services responded before the boat sank around six hours later. A separate investigation into French military personnel's failure to assist is proceeding alongside this trial, which runs through September.

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