France and Britain have been trying to stop the flow of migrants across the Channel
France and Britain have been trying to stop the flow of migrants across the Channel AFP

The family of an Ethiopian man who was among 27 migrants who drowned in 2021 when their boat capsized in the Channel filed a complaint Friday suing the French state in the first such case over the disaster, two groups said.

Utopia 56, a group defending the rights of migrants, and the French Human Rights League (LDH) were among the plaintiffs.

They said it was the first such complaint against the authorities over the November 24, 2021, disaster, the worst accident in the sea strait since it became a key route for migrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia attempting to reach England from France.

The wife and two children of Fikeru Shiferaw, an Ethiopian who hoped to seek asylum in the United Kingdom, filed the request for damages with a court in the northern city of Lille, they said in a statement.

LDH president Patrick Baudouin said they were taking part to remind people "that these tragedies have a universal reach that we could remedy by ending deadly policies of non-assistance at sea".

Nikolai Posner, of Utopia 56, said they hoped the families of other victims would join the lawsuit.

A pregnant woman and three children were among the 27 people killed when the inflatable boat they were travelling on started to take in water and capsized. Two people survived and four remain missing.

French authorities have been accused of failing to respond to around 15 calls for help, and prosecutors last year charged seven military personnel for failing to assist persons in danger.

Le Monde newspaper on Friday said the French inquiry showed that a French military boat patrolling the waters was not monitoring Channel 16, the international distress frequency, on which the British rescue centre had issued "Mayday" calls to help the boat.

Its crew also ignored three distress signals that did make it through via their radio, with one officer saying after the coordinates of the sinking boat were shared that it was on "the English" side, it said.

Passengers, a large part of whom were Iraqi Kurds, contacted France's Channel rescue centre at 1:48 am on November 24 to say their vessel was deflating and its engine had stopped, Le Monde reported last year.

They sent their locations via WhatsApp around 15 minutes later.

According to one transcript of a telephone conversation seen by AFP, a migrant told the French coastguard on the phone: "Please help... I'm in the water!"

"Yes -- but you are in English waters," the coastguard replied.