All of the 27 bodies recovered after the sinking in the Channel last month of an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants attempting to reach the UK from France were finally identified last week, when official permits were issued for their burials.
Meanwhile, one of the two sole survivors rescued from the sea off the French port of Calais on November 24th, a Kurdish man from Iraq, has suggested other people on board the boat remain missing. He recalled that before it took to the water, the traffickers who organised the trip had counted 33 people on board. On December 10th, a fishing boat operating in the sea off Calais found a corpse in its nets, but the prosecution services have since formally excluded a connection with the sinking.
The 27 identified victims are from seven different countries, and while the interior ministry announced that the cost of the burials of those who are laid to rest in France will be met by the state, it would not pay for the repatriation of others.
But this is a procedure that is for most families, if not all, prohibitively expensive, adding even further anguish and misery for the relatives of those who perished in the deadliest single tragedy on record involving migrants attempting the treacherous crossing of the Channel.
“The families want absolutely to see the bodies of their loved ones, it’s very important,” said Jan Kakar, a Paris-based interpreter who is president of an association called Solidarité des Afghans. He has been closely involved in helping to repatriate the bodies of four Afghan men who were among those who died in the sinking last month. “It is such a terrible tragedy that one cannot, on top, ask for money from these families of asylum seekers with no resources, who live in a war-torn country.”
The 27 dead now identified by the French authorities included 16 Iraqi Kurdish people, made up of ten men aged between 19 and 37, four women aged between 22 and 46, a seven-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy. Another Kurd, a 23-year-old man from Iran, also died.
The other victims were four Afghan men aged between 24 and 40, three Ethiopian nationals – two women aged 22 and 25, and a 46-year-old man –, a 33-year-old Somalian man, a 20-year-old Egyptian man and a 29-year-old Vietnamese man who, on Thursday, was the last to be identified.
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Samad Akrach is from the Tahara association based in a suburb south-east of Paris whose volunteers perform the Islamic ritual of cleansing the bodies of the dead before burial, and who provide help to the financially needy to organise what he called “dignified” burials. He was contacted by Jan Kakar for help on the cases of the four Afghan men who died in the boat-sinking last month.
Akrach, 34, who is an auxiliary nurse, last week travelled to the mortuary at the medico-legal institute in Lille, north-east France, to carry out the purification ritual on their bodies. The network of contacts he has through the work of his association, notably with undertakers, provided key help with the repatriation of the bodies. “When they knew that it was for the victims of the sinking, the partners who I am used to working with offered me the coffins and lent two hearses for the transport of the bodies to [Paris] Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport,” explained Akrach.
His association, whose finances depend upon donations, is paying for the costs of the preservation of the bodies at the airport and for the air transport of the coffins, to be sent to Afghanistan via Pakistan. “For this time, it will only cost 200 euros per coffin,” he said. “Given the tragedy, the company told me they could make a gesture.”
Meanwhile, a representative of the authorities of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, contacted by Mediapart, said they are paying for the repatriation of the bodies of the 16 Iraqi Kurds who perished in the sinking. That process will begin next week, according to the French undertakers in charge of organising the transportation.
A member of the association Solidarity Border, which provides assistance to migrants in and around the Channel port of Dunkirk, and which, along with the Red Cross, has been involved in helping relatives of those who died on November 24th with administrative formalities, none of the victims will be buried in France. “All the families have asked for the repatriation of their deceased loved ones,” she said, speaking on condition her name was withheld.
The administrative procedures for this, which can be lengthy, have been speeded up concerning the November 24th victims. “Most often it’s quite long, the time to bring together the passport and necessary documents,” she explained. “Repatriations can take several weeks, even more. We had the case of a Kurd whose body remained blocked at the mortuary for a year because one document was missing.”
While the known toll of the November 24th sinking was unprecedented, the deaths of migrants trying to cross to Britain from northern France – whether by small boats, or by grabbing onto trucks in the port of Calais or onto trains entering the Channel Tunnel – has for years been a regular occurrence. In September this year, a 20-year-old Sudanese man, Yasser Abdallah, died from his injuries when he was struck by a truck he had tried to mount in Calais. According to Amnesty International’s French bureau, at least 340 migrants have died attempting to cross the Channel to Britain since 1999.
Juliette Delaplace is the head of the Secours Catholique charity’s mission for ‘exiled people on the coast of the Nord’ – the name of the département (similar to a county) in north-east France situated beside that of the Pas-de-Calais. “We have counted six people who perished [at sea] and seven whose bodies have not been found,” she said of the charity’s grim recorded toll for the region this year, excluding the 27 known dead in last month’s dinghy sinking. On the morning of that very same day of November 24th, Delaplace had attended the funeral of a migrant. The official toll of deaths of migrants so far this year, and including those of November 24th, is 30 dead and four missing, presumed dead.
Helping with the formalities for the burials locally, or the repatriation of bodies, is a dedicated group created by members of the Red Cross, the Secours Catholique and two local associations providing assistance to migrants, Utopia 56 and the Auberge des migrants. It is often that families of migrants who have died want their remains to be brought home but, according to undertakers questioned by Mediapart, the average costs of the repatriation can vary from between 3,000 euros to 5,000 euros, depending upon the destination.
In the cases where relatives have agreed for the burial to be made in France, as for all burials which cannot be paid for and cases involving the death of a person who cannot be identified, the organisation of the burial is by law the responsibility of the local town hall.
“Cemeteries have to have ‘common grave grounds’, once called ‘paupers’ graves’, to be able to lay to rest people with no resources,” explained Eva Ottavy from the Cimade, a French NGO that provides assistance of various kinds to displaced people. In charge of the Cimade’s ‘international solidarity’ services, she has written a guide for the use of associations providing assistance with burials after the deaths of migrants, notably in France, Italy and the Comoros islands (from where large numbers of people try to reach the nearby French territory of Mayotte). “For the funerals, each town hall fixes a ‘minimum’ [of things], for example two undertakers to carry the coffin, a few words to be spoken, a bouquet of flowers. In Italy, for unidentified people, a little notice is added with the date of the sinking.”
Under French law, a local municipal council can issue an order for a body to be removed from the common grave grounds after a minimum of five years, when the remains are removed, incinerated and placed in an ossuary to make way for a fresh grave. “Talking with town halls and cemeteries, what we understand is that in practice they wait more like ten or 15 years,” said Ottavy.
The task for the associations helping relatives with the administrative formalities following a death can be challenging, and they would like to see the state cooperate more actively. “The associations have been doing that job for years, making up for the absence of the state,” said Nathanaël Caillaux of the Secours Catholique. “They are not easy moments for us and they are very heavy procedures.”
Brahim Fares runs a Muslim undertaker’s business, Bab el Jenna, at Grande-Synthe, close to Calais, and has close working relations with the dedicated group set up by the Secours Catholique and other local migrant aid associations to help with funeral arrangements. “The most often it’s the Secours Catholique which informs me of a death,” he said. “I then contact the police who give me the body. When we have contact with those close [to the deceased], we ask if they prefer a burial in France or a repatriation, and we organise the rest.”
“For a long time we financed everything, alone, the state has never helped us,” he continued. “But we do that for the deceased, so that they’re protected and leave in dignity.” The Secours Catholique helps with the financing, as do also certain foreign consulates. “The Iraqi consulate helps us from time to time with the repatriations,” said Fares. “Sometimes, they tell me they have a budget which, subsequently, they no longer have. Me, I cannot leave people in the mortuary, so I end up looking after it, even if I haven’t received any money.”
The burial funds provided by local town halls are limited, and for the Muslim migrants who are buried in France it is down to the local migrant aid associations, and others like Samad Akrach’s Tahara, and also mosques and churches, and local inhabitants, who help ensure the respect of religious rituals and traditions.
For Nathanaël Caillaux, the heart of the problem lies elsewhere. “These exiled people are above all victims of French and British migratory policies,” he said of the November 24th tragedy. “There must be action taken to ensure that this does not happen again, with a change in the policies applied at the border.”
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The original French version of this report can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse