The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered the government of Malta, an European country, to pay a total of Tk 11.6 million, or €90,000, to six Bangladeshi nationals in damages and legal expenses for breaching the fundamental human rights.
Malta is an archipelago in the central Mediterranean between Sicily and the North African coast.
The Bangladeshi nationals reached Malta on November 18, 2022 with a group of around another 40 persons after being rescued at sea. The six were minors aged between 16 and 17 years at the time of their rescue. Later, the six minors were kept at detention centres in Malta along with adult detainees.
Taking a case filed over the detention of minors along with adults into cognisance, the ECHR said the incident was a breach of fundamental rights and tantamount to inhuman and degrading treatment, according to a report published on Malta Today, a newspaper of the archipelago.
The ECHR also ordered the Maltese government to pay one applicant €9,000 and the rest €15,000 each, as well as €6,000 jointly to all applicants in damages and legal expenses. The Maltese government will have to pay a total of €90,000 to implement the court order.
The court stressed the need to detain children in an immigration context very carefully. The applicants were represented by the human rights NGO Aditus.
Out of the six detainees, five were released from the detention centre in May last year. The rest one was expelled from the country after getting adult in August last year.