A covered reception hall, camp beds in disarray and mobile toilets sent urgently: more than 300 Indians are still confined on Saturday in an airport in eastern France where the authorities, who suspect “human trafficking human beings”, have been stopping their flight for two days.
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Among these passengers are “13 unaccompanied minors, as well as accompanied minors,” according to the department’s civil protection, a figure not confirmed by the authorities. Their ages “range from a 21-month-old baby to a 17-year-old teenager.”
This plane, an Airbus A340 from the Romanian company Legend Airlines, was initially supposed to connect Dubai (United Arab Emirates) to Managua, capital of Nicaragua.
But what was only supposed to be a technical stopover on the runway of the small Vatry airport, 150 kilometers east of Paris, has been transformed since Thursday afternoon into a long immobilization, after an “anonymous report” according to which passengers were “likely to be victims of human trafficking” in an organized gang, the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP on Friday.
According to a source close to the matter, the Indian passengers, probably workers in the United Arab Emirates, may have planned to go to Central America in order to then attempt to enter the United States or Canada illegally.
Two police guards
The passengers of this plane were still confined on Saturday morning in the airport reception hall, noted an AFP journalist. They have remained there since Thursday evening, the place having been transformed by prefectural decree into a waiting area for foreigners.
Two of them were in police custody on Friday evening.
The investigation aims to “verify whether any elements would corroborate” the suspicions of human trafficking, according to the prosecution.
Investigators have checked the identity of passengers and cabin crew, and are checking the “conditions and objectives of transport” of these people, he said.
The thirty members of the crew, 15 for the Dubai-Vatry connection and 14 or 15 for the Vatry-Managua route, “were interviewed and authorized to leave freely,” Liliana Bakayoko, who introduced herself, told AFP. as the airline’s lawyer.
Legend Airlines “only carried out a few flights on this route, always for the same non-European customer”, she added, specifying that the company intends to “file a civil suit if proceedings are initiated by the public prosecutor , or file a complaint” otherwise.
The Indian embassy in France indicated on Saturday on X, ex-Twitter, that it was working towards “a rapid resolution of the situation”, adding that “consular staff are on site”.
“Family zone”
Tarpaulins were installed in front of the bay windows of the airport reception hall, as well as on the administrative buildings. Access remained blocked by the police and the gendarmerie on Saturday morning, noted an AFP journalist.
The law provides that if he arrives in France by plane and is refused boarding to his country of destination, a foreigner can be kept in a waiting zone for a maximum of four days by the border police.
This detention can be extended by eight days by a detention and liberty judge, then by an additional eight days exceptionally. At most, depending on the appeals, retention in the reception area can reach 26 days.
Individual beds have been made available to passengers, as well as toilets and showers, indicates the prefecture, which specifies that a “family+ zone to ensure parent-child privacy” has been deployed. “Three meals a day (are) provided by state services,” she adds.
The plane, completely white and without the name of any company, was still immobilized on the tarmac Saturday morning.
According to the specialized site Flightradar, Legend Airlines is a small company whose fleet is made up of four planes, including two A340-313s.