Ibrahima Bah, a 19-year-old described as having no fixed address, has been formally charged with a people smuggling offence after the deaths of four boat migrants at sea.
Police in the United Kingdom have reportedly charged Ibrahima Bah, a 19-year-old man, with a people smuggling offence in the wake of the deaths of four migrants in the English Channel.
The migrants are thought to have died while attempting to illegally enter Britain after their small boat, thought to be carrying over 39 people, “ran into difficulties” in the water last Wednesday.
According to a statement by one local police force, Bah was arrested by local authorities on Friday.
The statement describes the man as being charged by police with “knowingly facilitating the attempted arrival in the United Kingdom of people he knew or had reasonable cause to believe were asylum seekers”, a move that was reportedly authorised by the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service.
He is now reportedly set to appear before the Folkestone Magistrates’ Court sometime on Monday.
At least four migrants are known to have died as a result of the failed English Channel crossing, which reportedly saw over 39 boat migrants face freezing temperatures in little more than t-shirts and thin life jackets.
UK officials are still reportedly working on ascertaining the identities of those who died, as well as contacting their next of kin to inform them of their deaths.
“Crossing the Channel in unseaworthy vessels is a lethally dangerous endeavour,” the UK’s Home Office Secretary, Suella Braverman, previously commented in the wake of the deaths.
The senior politician went on to refer back to a previous day’s statement from British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, during which he once again swore that the Tory party government would put an end to the huge number of boat crossings, which have reportedly seen nearly 45,000 migrants land in Britain this year.
However, similar promises have been issued by senior members of the party before, with little actual progress being made in 2022, despite a similar boat migrant disaster occurring in November 2021 which killed 31 migrants who aimed to illegally land in the UK.