Coroner finds three migrants were unlawfully killed in English Channel tragedy
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A coroner has recorded conclusions of unlawful killing at the inquests of three migrants who died when their small boat sank attempting to cross the English Channel. Fellow migrant Ibrahima Bah was sentenced to nine-and-a-half years’ detention at Canterbury Crown Court in February for manslaughter and facilitating illegal entry to the UK after the deaths.
He had piloted the “unseaworthy” boat between France and the UK on December 14 2022. Coroner Patricia Harding held inquests into three of the men who died during the incident – Mohamed Lamine Toure, a student born in 1995 in Guinea, Moussa Kouyae, an 18-year-old student also from Guinea, and a third man who has not been identified.
Hejratullah Ahmadi, a 31-year-old married man from Afghanistan who had a six-year-old daughter at the time of his death, also died in the incident but the coroner did not hold an inquest for him because he was identified as part of the criminal trial against Bah.
Detective Inspector Ross Gurden, of Kent Police, told the Maidstone hearing there were 44 people on board the small boat of which four died, 39 survived and one person remained missing. He said the occupants had all been in migrant camps in the Dunkerque and Calais areas before they were transported to a beach in northern France to go on a boat provided by people smugglers.
He said: “The boat is a large dinghy with an outboard engine that sits on a wooden panel on the rear. “It was inflated on the beach immediately prior to launch. Some lifejackets were provided for the occupants but there were insufficient for every person on board.”.
