Three Hundred Passengers Were Detained At A French Airport For Four Days While Authorities Looked Into Human Trafficking Claims

Over 300 travelers from India were stuck in the small Vatry Airport in the Champagne region of France when their charter flight was held over claims of human trafficking, the AP reports. The flight was heading to Nicaragua and contained young children, families, and 11 unaccompanied minors, according to Insider.

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The chartered flight had just stopped in the Vatry Airport to refuel and was carrying 300 Indian passengers traveling from Fujairah airport in United Arab Emirates to Managua, Nicaragua when French authorities received an anonymous tip that the flight could be carrying victims of human trafficking. Two passengers were detained, but prosecutors wouldn’t offer any detail as to the specific allegations levied against them.

The passengers initially remained on the plane, surrounded by police, until it became clear that the investigation would not be a quick one. After that, passengers were escorted into the airport. An area was cordoned off for the traveling families, and unaccompanied minors were provided with guardians.

From Insider:

The airport was requisitioned by police for days, and then turned into a makeshift courtroom Sunday as judges, lawyers and translators filled the terminal to carry out emergency hearings to determine whether to keep the Indians sequestered any longer.

The hearings were halted midway because of a dispute over the procedure used to block the Indians in the airport, and a decision on next steps was expected overnight, the prosecutor said Sunday.

The airport was outfitted with cots while volunteers provided meals to all those people waiting — but there were plenty of questions about the administration of justice. Francois Procureur, the head of the Châlons-en-Champagne Bar Association, referred to the detention as “unprecedented,” saying, “I’m surprised at how things unfolded in the waiting area. People should have been informed of their rights, and that was not the case.”

Nicaragua is one of 17 nations designated by the U.S. as having failed to meet minimum standards to eliminate human trafficking. The Central American country has become a hub of trafficking, and people from India have been turning up at the U.S.-Mexico border in record numbers this year.

Most of the 303 passengers were sent back to India; the 276 people allowed to travel returned to Mumbai on Tuesday, Dec. 26, wearing hoods or masks as they disembarked to protect their identities. Aside from the two passengers detained for questioning, an additional 25 passengers requested asylum in France; five of them were children.