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A Paris court has convicted six people smugglers of involuntary homicide for their roles in the deadliest small-boat sinking ever recorded in the English Channel, a disaster that claimed the lives of 31 migrants attempting to reach British shores in November 2021.
The verdict, delivered after a four-week trial, resulted in prison sentences ranging from six to 10 years for the six individuals found most culpable. An additional seven defendants received lighter penalties of up to four years, while one person was acquitted entirely.
The tragedy unfolded in the early hours of 24 November 2021, when the overcrowded vessel went down after distress calls were placed to both French and British coastguard authorities. Among the dead was a seven-year-old child. The victims were predominantly Iraqi Kurds, though the group also included Afghans, Egyptians and Iranian Kurds. Only two men survived the sinking.
According to the charge sheet presented during proceedings, the migrants had been launched from the French coastline in a boat described as being "of poor quality, uncertified, unsuitable for navigation at sea, overloaded, and without correct life jackets." These factors combined to create the catastrophic conditions that led to the vessel's collapse.
The trial established that those convicted belonged to two distinct criminal networks — one composed of Iraqi Kurds, the other of Afghans — that had joined forces to arrange the cross-Channel passage and assemble the migrants at a departure point. The collaboration between the two groups illustrates the increasingly sophisticated and transnational nature of people-smuggling operations along Europe's northern coast.
In an unusual development for a case of this magnitude, several family members of the victims travelled from Iraqi Kurdistan to attend the opening of the trial in France. Their testimony painted a deeply human picture of the people who perished, moving the courtroom with accounts of how their loved ones came to be aboard the doomed vessel.
One relative, Zana Marmand Muhammed, recounted how his younger brother Twana had been determined to reach England in search of employment, driven partly by the precarious geopolitical situation in their home region. He told the court that no one in the family had wanted Twana to leave, but their efforts to dissuade him had ultimately failed.
Nabi Mustafa Mina, the father of 19-year-old victim Zanyar, described his own desperate attempts to keep his son at home. He offered to help him marry, to give him his house and to split his salary in two, but the young man insisted he wanted a better life and believed he would find a way to succeed. "I ran out of arguments," Mina told the court.
Family members also detailed the financial arrangements behind the journey, explaining how they had paid a deposit at a bank in Iraqi Kurdistan before tracking their relatives' movement through Turkey, Italy and finally France. In one of the final messages received from Twana, he had sent a photograph of himself standing at the Eiffel Tower.
The court also heard from one of the two survivors, Issa Omar, through a statement read aloud by his lawyer. Omar expressed that he had wished to appear before the judge in person but lacked the strength to do so. He described feeling as though part of him had disappeared beneath the waves since the wreck, a haunting testimony to the psychological toll of the disaster.
Omar's lawyer, Matthieu Chirez, provided further detail about his client's ordeal, explaining that Omar had survived by clinging to floating bodies and a life jacket. He had forced himself to keep his eyes open to avoid falling asleep and had swum continuously to keep his heart beating.
Following the verdict, Chirez spoke to the press, saying the decision "comes as a relief for all the civil plaintiffs because it confirms the penal responsibility of the traffickers." He added that the trial had succeeded in "humanised the families of victims," giving a human face to those who are often reduced to statistics in discussions of migration policy.
The investigation that led to these convictions relied heavily on phone tracking data, which allowed police to identify members of both criminal networks. The lesser figures in the case were accused of providing shelter to migrants, transporting them across France to the informal camp outside Calais known as the "jungle," and assisting on the night of the departure.
Notably, the alleged leader of the Iraqi Kurd network — identified only as Bashdar — was not among the defendants. He remains in custody in Iraq. His close associate, Harem Ahmed Abawaker, received an eight-year prison sentence for his role in the operation.
The heaviest penalty, a 10-year term, was handed down to Obaidullah Maroofkhel, who ran the Afghan network. He was tried in absentia alongside one other defendant. Most of the 14 people tried in the case were Afghans or Iraqi Kurds, and all but one had appeared at trial as free individuals. Consequently, following the verdict, the court issued six arrest warrants.
Separately, a distinct police investigation is continuing into seven members of the French armed forces for allegedly failing to assist the migrants on the night of the disaster. These individuals were stationed either at the regional sea rescue centre or aboard a navy vessel, and are accused of ignoring distress calls from the sinking boat. A decision on whether to recommend them for trial is expected in the coming months.
The conclusion of the trial coincided with an announcement by France and the United Kingdom that they are ending the so-called "one-in one-out" scheme. Under this arrangement, the British government returned irregular cross-Channel migrants to France while accepting individuals deemed likely to be granted asylum. France had already indicated that the year-long programme, which facilitated the transfer of slightly more than 1,000 migrants between the two countries, was not delivering the anticipated results in dismantling the traffickers' business model.
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