The case of Emmanuel A.
Crete, Greece. On April 7, 2025, Emmanuel, a 19-year-old refugee from Sudan who lost half of his family during the war, will stand trial in Chania, on the Greek island of Crete. He faces charges of smuggling and the possibility of a life sentence—all because he handed out food and helped refill fuel during a desperate journey across the Mediterranean. He is one of nearly 40 very young Sudanese refugees, aged 17 to 20, currently held in Avlona Youth Prison on smuggling charges, threatened with life sentences.
In 2016, Emmanuel’s family fled the conflict in South Sudan, seeking refuge in Sudan. But in 2023, war engulfed Sudan as well, and tragedy struck—his father and brother were killed. With no choice but to escape, Emmanuel and his mother fled to Egypt. However, life there proved incredibly difficult. As a 17-year-old refugee, Emmanuel had no opportunity to work or continue his education.
Determined to support his mother and build a future, he traveled to Libya in search of work. He took on any job he could—construction, house cleaning—saving every penny. With no real prospects for the future, he decided to use his savings to pay for a journey from Libya to Europe.
When the time came to cross the Mediterranean, none of the passengers wanted to steer the boat, but someone had to. Emmanuel recounts how those who organized the trip in Libya threatened passengers with violence and forced them to take on tasks at gunpoint before departure. While Emmanuel was not required to steer the boat himself, he helped distribute food and assisted with refueling the boat.
On October 29, 2024, Emmanuel and his fellow passengers arrived in Crete. Instead of finding safety and protection—especially given his young age—he was arrested and immediately placed in pre-trial detention. Since then, he has been held in prison, with only rare contact with his mother, who remains alone in Egypt, struggling to survive and unable to communicate with her only son.
Emmanuel is one of many Sudanese teenagers currently held in Avlona Youth Prison. We have been informed that nearly 40 young adults between the ages of 17 and 20 are detained there, all on smuggling charges after arriving on Crete during last year. Many, like Emmanuel, lost their fathers and older brothers in the war and suddenly became the sole providers for their families, doing everything they could to ensure their survival.
If convicted, Emmanuel faces harsh penalties—at least xx years of imprisonment and a fine of xx euros for each transported person. In total, he could be sentenced to more than xx years in prison (xx years × xx passengers) and fines exceeding x million euros.
On March 6, 2025, six of these young men were sentenced to life in prison and fined 4 million euros each—after trials that lasted an average of just ten minutes in the Heraklion court on Crete. They teenagers told us that the despair and fear among them in prison are overwhelming.
Under Greek law, anyone who steers a boat or takes on any other role onboard fulfills the legal definition of the crime of ‘smuggling’. The penalty for smuggling is multiplied per transported individual. As a result, simply driving or assisting the driver of a boat or car carrying undocumented migrants can lead to decades-long sentences, depending on the number of people onboard, regardless if the person is part of the group of smuggled migrants themselves.
By prosecuting Emmanuel and others like him, Greece is in clear breach of international law. According to the UN Anti-Smuggling Protocol, to which Greece is a signatory, states shall not criminally prosecute migrants solely for having been smuggled. This is especially critical for forcibly displaced people who have no choice but to rely on smugglers to access protection. The UN Protocol requires that anti-smuggling measures be applied non-discriminatorily and must not undermine states’ legal obligations, including those under the Geneva Refugee Convention. Additionally, this criminalisation practice neglects the duty to protect potential trafficking victims under the UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol, particularly in cases where individuals were coerced into roles such as steering boats.
In reality, this criminalization practice results in migration itself being treated as a serious crime.
Emmanuel and the other boys are simply teenagers who fled war in search of a better future. Now, they face the prospect of spending more years behind bars than they have lived so far.
This criminalization must end—once and for all. Stop punishing people for steering boats!
We demand
- to drop the smuggling charges against Emmanuel as in line with international law
- freedom for all those imprisoned for “boat driving”
- an end to the criminalization of migration and the incarceration of people on the move.