DocDays Productions/Safe Passage Films
She fled her home in Syria as the civil war raged like countless others, but the extraordinary circumstances of Sara Mardini’s particular escape would bring her and her family to international attention. In 2015, she and her younger sister, Yusra, helped to save the lives of 18 others by pulling their sinking boat for three-and-a-half hours on a perilous crossing from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. Yusra would go on to swim for the Refugee Olympic Team at the Olympic games and Sara, after settling in Germany, returned to Lesbos to provide humanitarian aid to others arriving on the shores of Europe in the most desperate situations.
Their inspiring story of survival, which generated headlines around the world calling the sisters heroes, was even adapted into a Netflix film, The Swimmers, released last year. What that feel-good movie doesn’t show, however, is the very real legal battle that has consumed Sara’s life for the past five years—a high-profile example of what human rights organizations say is an alarming trend of humanitarians who help refugees being punished and criminalized for their actions.
Sara, now 27, was arrested in Greece in 2018 and held in pretrial detention for 107 days in a high-security jail in Athens. Later, she and other charity workers were charged with a slew of crimes including espionage, money laundering, and being members of a criminal organization. Amnesty International described the allegations “unfair and baseless” and said the prosecution was designed “to dissuade others from showing solidarity with refugees and migrants.”