ZAGREB, 18 Nov 2021 - The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday held that the investigation into the death of a six-year-old Afghan child who was hit by a train, had been ineffective and ruled that Croatia pay her family compensation of €40,000 and €16,700 in court costs.

The six-year-old girl, Madine Hosseini was killed in November 2017 when she was hit by a train on the Croatian-Serbian border after her family had allegedly been denied the opportunity to seek asylum by Croatian authorities and were ordered to return to Serbia via the tracks.

Madine and her family were in a group of migrants who tried to enter Croatia from the Serbian municipality of Šid.

ECHR determined that there had been several violations of the European Convention for Human Rights.

"The Court found that the investigation into the death had been ineffective, that the applicant children’s detention had amounted to ill-treatment, and that the decisions around the applicants’ detention had not been dealt with diligently," ECHR said on its website on Thursday.

The court also held that some of the applicants had suffered a collective expulsion from Croatia and that the State had hindered the effective exercise of the applicants’ right of individual application by restricting access to their lawyer among other things.

The court has ordered Croatia to pay the family €40,000 non-pecuniary damage and €16,700 in respect of costs and expenses.

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