The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday ruled that Croatian authorities failed to provide sufficient and reasonable protection of life for Moroccan Abdeljalil Daraibou, the only survivor of a fire in the basement of the Bajakovo border police station, and must pay him €15,000 in damages.

The Croatian police found the Moroccan national and three other migrants in the early morning hours of 27 March 2015 in a truck in which they tried to illegally enter Croatia from Serbia.

In a fire that broke out later that day in the room where the migrants were detained, three migrants were killed while Daraibou suffered severe injuries.

The Moroccan sued Croatia before the European Court of Human Rights, seeking damages in the amount of €80,000 and the ECHR ruled that Croatia was to pay the applicant €15,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and €5,000 in respect of costs and expenses.

“The Court… concluded that the authorities had failed to provide the applicant with sufficient and reasonable protection of his life and limb…. and no attempt had been made to establish whether there had been broader institutional shortcomings which could have prevented similar errors in the future.”

The Court concluded that a search of the migrants had not been thorough and that the police station in question and its personnel had clearly been ill-prepared to deal with
the outbreak of a fire.

The Court found that, according to findings of an investigation carried out by the Croatian authorities, the fire was lit by the detainees, who most probably used a cigarette lighter, which should have been taken away from them.

Also, the monitoring of the four migrants during their stay in the police station was inadequate.

“Although a video surveillance system had been in place, it had apparently not been in use at all times,” the court said.