Crossing the English Channel: the faces of the shipwreck – Liberation

Maryam Nouri Hamadameen, Husain Tanha, the Rezgar family … Three weeks after the sinking of a rubber dinghy that claimed the lives of 27 exiles in the Channel, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed their identity on Tuesday.

On November 24 at Loon-Plage, they took place aboard an inflatable boat heading for England. Women, children, young adults who hoped that night to live a gentler life on the other side of the Channel. They will never succeed: their boat has deflated, causing at least 27 of them to drown. Three weeks after the sinking, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed on Tuesday the identity of the bodies that were recovered, at the end of a long process. Release traces the course of some of them.

Husain Tanha, 24 years old

When they left Afghanistan five years ago, Husain Tanha and his cousin Amanullah Omakil imagined their future in Europe: they could soon take long walks in green meadows, without fear for their safety. Amanullah, the youngest, a short, clean-shaven brunette, was an unaccompanied minor when he arrived in France. He was taken care of by child welfare and has now been working for four months in a pizzeria in Dunkirk. Husain, of age when he arrived on the continent, obtained a residence permit in Italy, but found no work there. He decides to …