On the 18th of September 2023, the ECtHR published its communicated case no. 22920/16. The case concerns an applicant with Palestinian and Syrian nationality who arrived with his wife and two children in the forest area of Samos. They allegedly informed the Turkish and Greek authorities repeatedly of their presence and requested help, but the authorities were unable to locate them. Due to the family’s exhaustion, they remained at a fixed point in the forest while the applicant tried to find help, but a fire broke out and the remains of his family were later found. The ECtHR asks whether the right to life of the applicant’s wife and children were violated and whether the authorities respected the applicant as a relative of the victims by regularly informing him of the progress of their investigations and involving him in the proceedings.
Based on an unofficial translation from within the EWLU-team