Hungary ordered to pay damages to unlawfully detained Afghan refugee family

According to the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, the Hungarian state had unlawfully detained an Afghan family of four in the transit zone in Röszke for 211 days. The Court has therefore ordered the state to pay EUR 15 000 in damages, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee has announced in a statement.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee represented the asylum-seeking family in the case against the Hungarian state before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. On Wednesday, the court ruled that the Hungarian state's detainment of the family was unlawful and their conditions were inhumane, while they were not given an option for any effective legal remedy.

The Strasbourg court awarded the family €15,000 in damages because the detention of the seriously ill mother, the detention of the young children and the father in the transit zone for seven months and the starvation of the father while there constituted inhumane, degrading treatment, which was unlawful, and against which Hungary did not provide judicial remedies.

The family was forced to flee Afghanistan because the father, who was working as an interpreter for the US military, was threatened with death by the Taliban. After a long wait in Serbia, the Hungarian authorities had finally allowed them to enter the transit zone in Röszke on 23 April 2018 to submit their asylum application.

The mother and the older child, aged three at the time, were in need of special health and psychosocial care due to the physical and psychological trauma they had suffered. The younger child, then aged one, had broken his arm as a result of conditions in the container prison which were unsuitable for children.

The family, which had suffered severe abuse and trauma during their detention of almost 7 months, did not receive adequate care and accommodation from the asylum authorities, despite repeated requests. In the meantime, the European Court of Human Rights had issued two rulings ordering the Hungarian state to relocate the family to appropriate conditions in view of their vulnerable situation.

On the second occasion, the urgent action of the Strasbourg Court had to be requested because – although their asylum procedure was still ongoing – the family had been placed in even worse conditions than before in the transit zone: they had been moved to the pre-deportation sector, where the father was starved for six days. The starvation lasted until, following a petition by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the Strasbourg court issued a new, interim measure ordering the Hungarian state to feed the father.

They were finally allowed to leave the transit zone on 19 November 2018, when the Budapest High Court granted their request for transfer. Since then they had found refuge in Germany.

The transit zones of Röszke and Tompa were finally shut down on May 2020 after 5 years of functioning, which put an end to holding refugees in the transit zone. Since then, several international court rulings have condemned the Hungarian state, most recently in early June when an Iranian refugee family won a case against Hungary in the Strasbourg Court.