ECHR Orders Greece to Compensate Migrant Teens for Illegal Detention

According to the RFERL media, the ECHR ruled on February 28 that Greece must pay 4,000 euros to nine teenagers (one Moroccan, six Syrians and two Iraqis) who arrived in the country in early 2016. The court considered that they had been held between three and five weeks in police or border guard stations before being transferred to the migration authorities. This is illegal, according to the European Court.

According to the ECHR, these detention sites are not suitable, especially for such durations, and in particular for children.

However, the migrants would have claimed that the reception center itself was overcrowded and unsanitary, an argument that was rejected by the Court. The latter declared that the influx of migrants in Greece at that time was an "unprecedented migration and humanitarian crisis" and that the reception center had been created urgently.

At the same time, on the same day, February 28, the ECHR ordered France to pay 15,000 euros to compensate a young Afghan who had spent six months in a migrant camp in Calais in 2016.