Afghans washed up on Texel were human smuggling victims

Two Afghan men whose body parts washed ashore on Texel in 2023 were victims of a vast human smuggling network led by infamous migrant smuggler Idriss Ghazi Kareem, according to an investigation by regional broadcaster NH and investigative TV programme Zembla.

The Afghan refugees, Samiullah (20) and Ahmad Jan (27), were only identified this summer. They had boarded a rubber dinghy on the night of August 12, 2023, along with 66 others just north of Calais, in an attempt to cross the English Channel. The boat’s engine failed and, after an explosion, the vessel tore apart.

Although 60 men survived, six were declared dead when found. Samiullah and Ahmad Jan, though, had gone missing.

Two months later, a single foot still in a shoe and a torso washed up on Texel. Dutch detective Fetze Venema worked with the Red Cross to identify the remains, including tracking down the relatives of the missing men in Afghanistan for DNA testing.

Idriss Ghazi Kareem

Following the incident, French authorities dismantled a huge human-trafficking network led by Idriss Ghazi Kareem. He was tried with eight others in Paris last year and sentenced to 15 years in prison for, among other things, procuring boats and other equipment for migrants to cross the English Channel.

The court found he earned hundreds of thousands of euros a year from his people-smuggling operations, which he continued to organise from prison.

Kareem had visited the Netherlands several times, including just three days before the fatal accident. The  Marechaussee, the military police force responsible for border control, says the country plays a key role in people-smuggling.

“It involves the import, transit, and storage of nautical equipment that is transported to the French coast, where it is then used to ferry migrants across to Great Britain.”

The Marechaussee has not commented on the latest media investigation, saying it “may be part of an ongoing investigation”.

Additional research by NH and Zembla found that at least 26 people, including eight women and two children, have died this year attempting to cross the English Channel in unseaworthy boats.

“Floating coffins”

Much of the equipment – from the rubber boat to its motor and life vests – was substandard. “These rubber boats are not seaworthy and generally originate from China,” national public prosecutor for migration-related crime Petra Hoekstra told Zembla. “They are imported into the Netherlands via Turkey.”

And, he said, the smugglers knew that. “For us, that is an aggravating circumstance. They believe that the money outweighs a human life. And that means they are deliberately placing people in floating coffins.”