French authorities said Tuesday they had formally identified 26 out of 27 migrants who drowned last month in an English Channel boat accident, with most of them Kurds from Iraq.

A statement from the Paris prosecutor said that there were 17 men among the deceased aged 19-26, seven women aged 22-46, as well as a 16-year-old teenager and a child aged seven.

Sixteen of the victims were Kurds from Iraq, four were Afghan men. Three Ethiopians, a Somalian woman, as well as an Iranian and an Egyptian man made up the others.

Authorities often have difficulties identifying dead migrants because they do not carry official documents and their family members frequently have to travel from remote areas overseas to see the bodies.

When news of the disaster broke, families rushed to the coroner's office in Lille, northern France to see if their loved ones were among the victims.

One of the dead was Hussein, a 24-year-old Afghan who had only arrived a few days earlier at the Dunkirk home of his 18-year-old cousin, Amanullah Omakhil.

The two were very close, having taken the journey into exile together in 2016. When Hussein said he was going to take his chances on the crossing, said Amanullah, he did not try to talk him out of the plan.

"It was his choice. He was older than me, I couldn't tell him 'Don't do this, don't do that,'" Amanullah recalled.

French investigators are still trying to establish a clearer picture of what happened during the disaster.

They are investigating reports the passengers had telephoned both French and British emergency services, appealing for help when the vessel began sinking, as one survivor told the Kurdish Iraqi channel Rudaw.

The accident was the most deadly involving a migrant boat in the Channel and cast a spotlight on the increasing number of desperate people seeking to cross the narrow waterway between France and England.

(With input from AFP)