Tages Gebregzabher’s only wish is to be reunited with his three-year-old son. Photo: Jason Borg

An Eritrean man is desperate to be reunited with his three-year-old son after his wife was killed in a traffic accident in Libya.

Tages Gebregzabher’s wife Shewit died on her way from Sudan after fleeing Eritrea with their young child, who survived the accident.

Mr Gebregzabher, who has international protection in Malta, made a similar journey a couple of years ago.

He had arrived safely in 2012, leaving behind his wife and two sons, one aged six and the other just six months at the time.

Earlier this year Shewit left their elder son with his grandmother in Eritrea and headed for Libya with the youngest, Abiel, in a bid to join her husband.

However, two weeks ago, Mr Gebregzabher, 47, received the news that she was one of at least seven women who had died the previous week in a vehicle outside Benghazi.

Luckily, Mr Gebregzabher’s brother in Tripoli took in little Abiel and three other children who were orphaned following the accident.

The tragedy that befell my family is horrible, but my son survived

But with Libya sinking deeper into violence, reportedly at its deadliest since 2011 when Muammar Gaddafi was ousted, the North African country is not a safe place for the boy.

Shewit Gebregzabher died in a road accident in Libya.

Visibly broken, Mr Gebregzabher yesterday made an appeal to the local authorities to let him bring Abiel to Malta for temporary shelter. Since he has subsidiary protection and not refugee status, he cannot automatically bring his son to Malta.

Flanked by Bahta Gebrezgi at the Migrants’ Commission office in Valletta, who was interpreting his appeal, Mr Gebregzabher said his only wish was to be reunited with his son, who was slightly injured during the accident three weeks ago and only recently received medical treatment.

“The tragedy that befell my family is horrible. Thankfully, my son survived and he is with my brother, but right now the situation in Libya is one of conflict and war,” Mr Gebregzabher said.

Going to Libya to join his son would prove risky for both, so the safest option would be to seek shelter here until the two are resettled through some programme.

The commission, which is supporting Mr Gebregzabher’s call for a special permit, said that a benefactor had already offered to pay the boy’s fare and they could be hosted at one of the commission’s homes in Malta.

The same benefactor is willing to pay to bring the other three orphans to Malta, considering the current conflict.

Commission director Mgr Philip Calleja told this newspaper: “Mr Gebregzabher is not a refugee so he has no right to ask for his child to be brought to Malta.

“But this is a very special humanitarian case: he lost his wife and he cannot see his son.”

The commission has informed the government about the situation and is also in touch with UNHCR and the Red Cross to keep a lookout for the boy in Tripoli as the “situation in Libya is not easy”.

It is now calling on local authorities to grant special permission to bring him to Malta.