Aid workers face prison time in Greece over ‘migrant smug...

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Aid workers face prison time in Greece over ‘migrant smuggling’ charges

Among them is Sarah Mardini whose story inspired the popular 2022 Netflix movie The Swimmers

Renee MaltezouThursday 04 December 2025 09:34 GMTComments

Afghan migrants arrive on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey on a inflatable dinghy, Friday, Sept. 25, 2015

open image in galleryAfghan migrants arrive on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey on a inflatable dinghy, Friday, Sept. 25, 2015 (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

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Dozens of aid workers have gone on trial in Greece, facing charges of migrant smuggling in a case that human rights organisations have condemned as an attempt to criminalise assistance for refugees.

The proceedings on the island of Lesbos unfold as European Union nations, including Greece – which experienced the arrival of over a million people during the 2015-2016 refugee crisis – increasingly tighten migration policies amid the rise of right-wing political parties across the bloc.

The 24 defendants, affiliated with the Emergency Response Center International (ERCI), a nonprofit search-and-rescue group that operated on Lesbos from 2016 to 2018, face multi-year prison sentences. The felony charges include involvement in a criminal group facilitating the illegal entry of migrants and money laundering linked to the group's funding.

Among them is Sarah Mardini, one of two Syrian sisters who saved refugees in 2015 by pulling their sinking dinghy to shore and whose story inspired the popular 2022 Netflix movie The Swimmers, and Sean Binder, a German national who began volunteering for ERCI in 2017.

Syrian refugees and swimmers Yusra and Sarah Mardini pose for photographers with the trophy at the Bambi awards on November 17, 2016 in Berlin

open image in gallerySyrian refugees and swimmers Yusra and Sarah Mardini pose for photographers with the trophy at the Bambi awards on November 17, 2016 in Berlin (AFP via Getty Images)

They were arrested in 2018 and spent over 100 days in pre-trial detention before being released pending trial. "The trial's result will define if humanitarian aid will be judicially protected from absurd charges or whether it will be left to the maelstrom of arbitrary narratives by prosecuting authorities," defence lawyer Zacharias Kesses told Reuters.

Greece has toughened its stance on migrants. Since 2019, the centre-right government has reinforced border controls with fences and sea patrols and in July it temporarily suspended processing asylum applications for migrants arriving from North Africa.

Anyone caught helping migrants to shore today may face charges including facilitating illegal entry into Greece or helping a criminal enterprise under a 2021 law passed as part of Europe’s efforts to counter mass migration from the Middle East and Asia. In 2023, a Greek court dropped espionage charges against the defendants.

Rights groups have criticised the case as baseless and lacking in evidence. "The case depends on deeply-flawed logic," Human Rights Watch said in a statement. "Saving lives at sea is mischaracterized as migrant smuggling, so the search-and-rescue group is a criminal organization, and therefore, the group’s legitimate fundraising is money laundering."