The events occurred on the English Channel on November 24, 2021.

According to recordings collected in the judicial file, the French rescue services decided not to take actions and let the precarious boat, which carried 50 people on board, continue to drift towards English waters so that the British coastguard could intervene.

According to the investigation, that evening, the passengers in distress called the French rescue services, the Red Cross emergency service, and even the Samu service up to 18 times; later they sent their geolocation on six occasions via Whatsapp, as the procedure requires.

Audio transcriptions, published by Radio France, show the indifference of those who responded to the distress calls.

Instead of sending a rescue boat, they only reported the incident to the British rescue services, which also failed to act, considering that the drifting boat would soon leave French waters.

Emmanuel Daoud, a lawyer for the victims’ families, stated that the French rescue services were negligent and ‘deliberately did not come to their rescue, claiming that this boat was drifting towards British territorial waters.’

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