Flight carrying 300 Indian citizens grounded at French airport after tip-off passengers are human trafficking victims
Around 300 Indian travellers are stuck in a French airport after their flight was grounded in a human trafficking investigation.
Those on board the Romania-based charter company Legend Airlines plane from Fujairah airport in the United Arab Emirates to Managua, in Nicaragua, included families and children.
The youngest passenger is a 21-month-old toddler while some of the children are unaccompanied, according to the local civil protection agency.
The A340 plane has been grounded since Thursday, when it stopped for fuelling at the small Vatry Airport, in the Champagne region of northeast France, after a tip-off those on board might be victims of people smugglers.
Two people have been detained and special investigators are questioning the other passengers, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
Prosecutors wouldn’t comment on the kind of trafficking alleged, or whether the ultimate destination of the passengers was likely to be the US, which has seen a large rise in the number of Indians crossing the Mexico-US border this year.
The plane has been grounded since Thursday. Pic: AP
White canvas has been hung across the airport’s bay windows by authorities to protect the privacy of the those inside.
Other flights were cancelled or rerouted as the airport was transformed into the hub of a vast human trafficking investigation.
Passengers sleep on camp beds
The 15 crew members have been questioned and released, according to a lawyer for the airline, who said they are deeply shaken by what happened.
Passengers have been held in the airport, where they have spent two nights on camp beds while the investigation continues, according to an official with the local administration.
Emergency workers, Red Cross workers, a doctor and local volunteers have arrived at the scene to look after the needs of the passengers, including providing regular meals, medical care and access to toilets and showers, the administration said in a statement on Saturday.
A special section of the terminal has been equipped for families, and Indian consular representatives are visiting regularly, the administration said.
Canvas put up to protect passengers’ privacy. Pic: AP
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The Indian Embassy in France posted on X that embassy staff had obtained consular access to the passengers.
“We are investigating the situation and ensuring the wellbeing of passengers,” it said.
Airline denies role in possible human trafficking
Legend Airlines lawyer Liliana Bakayoko said the company denies any role in possible human trafficking, and welcomed the release of the plane’s crew after questioning as “good news for the airline”.
A “partner” company that chartered the plane was responsible for verifying the identity documents of each passenger, and communicated the passengers’ passport information to the airline 48 hours before the flight, Ms Bakayoko said.
The customer, which she would not identify but said was not a European company, had chartered multiple flights on Legend Airlines from Dubai to Nicaragua, some of which had already made the journey without incident, she said.
The crew members, who are of multiple nationalities, “are rather traumatised”, she said, adding: “They wrote me messages that they want to see their families for Christmas.”
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While it is not certain the Indians’ destination was the US, Nicaragua has frequently been used as a springboard for migrants because of relaxed or visa-free entry requirements for some nationalities.
Charter flights are sometimes used to make the journey before migrants travel north by bus with the help of smugglers.
The US is dealing with record numbers of people trying to reach the US border from Mexico with the issue of border security becoming a key Republican line of attack ahead of the 2024 election.
The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
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In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
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This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.
Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.
World
‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment
A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
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Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Hatem Senior
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The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
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Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.
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