9 Afghans go on trial in France over human trafficking

ATLANTA (Pajhwok): Nine Afghans have gone on trial in France over allegations of attempting to smuggle migrants through the dangerous Channel Water from France into Britain, media reports said.

According to a report of Voice of America, the Afghans went on trial while France and Britain have already signed an agreement to prevent human trafficking on the perilous rout that has become increasingly used since 2018.

The men, whose trial opened in Paris on Tuesday, allegedly helped 35 Afghans and Vietnamese to immigrate to Britain, around January and March of 2021, by using kayaks and lifesaving jackets.

Four were being tried for playing a leading role in the smuggling operations while five others were accused of having played a secondary role.

The documents of the court say some of them are charged for purchasing lifesaving jackets and leaving the jackets in the sands of Wimereux city shore.

A confession of one of the defendants said, the smugglers did not receive all the money from one of the migrants who was supposed to drive the dinghy while another one was tasked to track the way by suing GPS would pay half of the money.

The migrants paid around 1,500 and 4,000 Euros to take them from France to Britain. These migrants were rescued either in France or Britain, the documents of their files show.

British authorities said, during the course of 2022 year over 45,000 migrants reached to the shore of southeast of England. In the previous,2021 year, more than 28,000 people were detected arriving in Britain.

In November, 2021 a vessel carrying 27 migrants including a child, majority of them were Kurds and Iraqis, sunk. The investigation about this incident is still going on.

In December of 2019, the court of France punished an Afghan and a Dutch man for human trafficking and manslaughter that caused death of an Iranian woman in the ocean, the court sentenced them to six and three years imprisonment.

aw/ma