Fourteen defendants go on trial in France on Tuesday over a 2021 Channel crossing that killed 31 people, including a seven-year-old, in the worst small-boat disaster involving migrants in those waters.
Prosecutors allege the accused, said to have ties to smuggling operations, bear responsibility for the sinking that claimed 27 confirmed lives — most of them Iraqi Kurds — when an overloaded dinghy went down in the early hours of 24 November, 2021.
