The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday condemned Hungary in the case of a Syrian migrant who tried to enter the country secretly in 2016 and who, after being refused by border guards, drowned in the Tisza River on the border with Serbia. , the EFE agency reports, citing Agerpres.

The ECtHR held that Hungary violated two articles of the European Convention on Human Rights in this case: one relating to the right to life and one prohibiting inhuman or degrading treatment by failing to conduct an investigation.

The brother of the Syrian migrant informed the European Court.

They were together when they tried to reach Hungary with the help of human traffickers on June 1, 2016, crossing the Tisza River from the Serbian side by boat.

According to his version, the Hungarian border guards forced them to return to Serbia, and his brother drowned. In his complaint to the ECtHR, he claimed that his brother’s death was the result of the actions of the Hungarian border police and that the Hungarian authorities had not conducted an effective investigation into what happened.

European judges found him right and ordered Hungary to pay the family of the dead migrant – a family currently in Germany – compensation of 34,000 euros in moral damages and 5,600 euros in legal costs.

Hungary condemned by the ECtHR for not respecting the rights of migrant families

In March 2021, the ECtHR condemned Hungary in another migrant-related case for several violations of the rights of an asylum seeker’s family in 2017, including the deprivation of food to which the father was subjected for four months.

After applying for asylum, a family with three children was placed in a transit zone, first in a 13 square meter container, then in isolation in another container when some members tested positive for hepatitis B.

According to Hungarian law, the father, because he was submitting a third application for asylum, “was no longer entitled to receive food from the authorities,” the ECtHR said at the time. He fed mainly on scraps found in the garbage.

The ECtHR emphasized that, “unable to leave the territory,” he was “totally dependent on the Hungarian authorities.” The judges said that the man “did not have adequate access to food”.

“The authorities did not analyze the situation sufficiently before depriving him of his food,” they argued, unanimously concluding that this violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits “inhuman or degrading treatment.”

Taking into account the “young age of the children” (they were seven months, six years and seven years old) and the state of health of the mother, who was pregnant, the Court found that they had also been subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment. during their stay.