Since Wednesday November 24 and the death of about thirty migrants in the sinking of their boat off Calais (Pas-de-Calais), Jan has received a lot of messages on his phone. This translator, at the head of an Afghan Parisian association, is solicited by compatriots without news of their relatives. “I have been sent many text messages, he says. One person told me that a member of my family, a man, was missing. Another gentleman is really worried about his friend. He sent me his photo, his passport too. This is the first time that I have received so many messages. “
Jan has been contacted by 15 Afghan families, five of whom have failed to hear from their loved one. Friday, November 26, the translator therefore went to the Medico-Legal Institute of Lille where the remains of the deceased castaways are located. But access has so far been denied. He was only able to transmit the names and photos collected to an investigator. Faced with the large number of victims, a specialized gendarmerie unit was mobilized to identify the bodies.
Putting names on these faces is an essential mission in the eyes of Samad Akrach, president of the Tahara association which buries destitute and migrants for free. “When we do not find a family, normally, they are buried in a temporary vault for five years, he explains. If no family shows up, either the bones are put in an ossuary or the body is taken to cremation. My goal is that every human being can be buried with dignity. “
Giving migrants their dignity is also what motivates the members of the “Death Group” as it was called in Calaisis. These associative activists and citizens do everything to avoid burials under X. Each time a candidate for exile dies, they go to the camps to try to retrieve information from other migrants. Juliette Delaplace from Secours Catholique is part of this team. “This group is mobilizing to support the relatives of the deceased and ensure that their wishes in terms of burial or repatriation are respected. It is a work that mobilizes us enormously”, she confides.
“Today the drama is completely beyond us. It is something of terrifying magnitude.”
Juliette Delaplace (Catholic Relief)to franceinfo
“The state must take charge of the organization of the funeral or repatriation because these are extremely cumbersome procedures.” In recent months, the workload has become even heavier for associative activists while the sinking of migrant boats has multiplied. Wednesday morning, the day when 27 migrants perished while trying to cross the Channel, the “Death Group” was at the funeral of Abdallah, a young man who had also died at sea a few days earlier.