Afghan asylum seeker faces threat of jail over son’s death in boat tragedy

Greek authorities charge 25-year-old after dinghy capsizes in the Aegean Sea

A European border patrol vessel tows a rubber dinghy with migrants rescued in the Aegean Sea. AFP

Greek authorities have charged an Afghan asylum seeker after his six-year-old son drowned when their boat capsized on the sea route from Turkey.

The man, who has not been named, faces up to six years in prison after being accused of endangering his son’s life during the attempted crossing on November 8, his lawyer said.

The case – believed to be the first of its kind – is the latest example of the Greek authorities’ tough stance against migrants after Turkey opened its borders in March.

The father, 25, and his son were travelling in a dinghy carrying about 25 people when it sank off the island of Samos on November 8. The father made it to shore and sought help but his son’s body was found the next day.

“These charges are a direct attack on the right to seek asylum and it is outrageous that a grieving father is being punished for seeking safety for himself and his child," said Josie Naughton, founder of the aid organisation Help Refugees.

The crossing from Turkey to Greece has become a key issue for the EU because the Greek islands mark the bloc’s external border.

The leaders of three EU institutions lined up with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in March to defend his efforts to prevent thousands of people crossing its borders despite claims of rights abuses.

The Greek coastguard has been accused of pushing back boats into Turkish waters to try to stop migrants arriving at the islands where camps struggled to cope with the new arrivals. The Greek authorities denied the claims.

UN and EU figures show a sharp drop overall in the numbers seeking to reach the EU compared with last year.

The figures for this year appear likely to amount to less than 10 per cent of more than a million people who sought to flee war and poverty in 2015.

The EU responded to the 2015 crisis by striking a deal with Turkey to keep migrants on its soil in return for billions of euros. But a series of disputes in 2020 between the bloc and Turkey prompted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to break the agreement.

UN officials told The National in March that an estimated 20,000 migrants were waiting along the 200-kilometre land border with Turkey and along its coastline to try to reach the Greek islands by boat.

But figures released by EU border agency Frontex on Tuesday said that there were fewer than 17,000 illegal border crossings in the first 10 months of 2020 in the Eastern Mediterranean region – amounting to a decline of 74 per cent from the same period a year before.