The lawsuit filed in Paris on Friday claims that as the boat was sinking the refugees sought to contact British and French rescue services, who passed the buck.
Speaking from a park in France, Mohamed Isa Omar said: I saw people dying in front of me. Those of us who could not swim, drowned and died within minutes. It was so cold the water, so cold.
Mohammed Shekha, 21 (right), had been travelling to the UK to find a job to pay for younger sister Fatima s (left) medical bills, which doctors told them would cost thousands of pounds.
Up to 50 people were supposed to board two boats ahead of the fatal voyage across Channel - but one vessel suffered engine trouble, those in camps in France claimed.
Baran Nouri Hamadamin, 24, was identified as one of 27 migrants who drowned after a flimsy boat capsized in the Channel six miles off Calais in France during stormy weather.