A three-year-old Eritrean boy who lost his mother in a car accident in Libya can be reunited with his father in Malta after the government granted special permission.

A government spokesman said the Home Affairs Ministry prepared the necessary paperwork last Friday, the same day that Times of Malta carried the father’s appeal for a special concession to bring over his son.

The father, Tages Gebregzabher, who has international protection in Malta, had asked for his son Abiel to be brought over after the mother died in a bus accident near Benghazi.

It is only a question of how the minor will be transferred to the airplane and who will accompany him on the flight

The government spokesman said the Foreign Ministry was involved in trying to locate the boy and prepare the logistical arrangements to have him flown to Malta.

The spokesman could not confirm yesterday whether Abiel had been found but reported “significant progress” in the search for the boy.

However, Libyan sources said he had been located and was currently in “a safe-house in Tripoli”.

“It is only a question of how the minor will be transferred to the airplane and who will accompany him on the flight to Malta,” the sources said, adding the boy was expected in Malta in the coming days.

Not being a refugee, Mr Gebregzabher has no automatic right to ask for his son to join him.

He told this newspaper that Abiel was taken in by his brother after the accident killed his wife Shewit.

The mother died on her way from Sudan after fleeing Eritrea with the couple’s youngest child to join her husband in Malta.

She had left the couple’s six-year-old son with his grandmother in Eritrea.

Mr Gebregzabher had arrived safely in 2012, leaving behind his wife and two sons.

But it is likely that Malta will also be involved in facilitating the transfer of another child, who found herself in a similar situation as Abiel.

The government spokesman confirmed that Malta had received a request from another country to help in transferring a girl whose surviving parent lived elsewhere.

“We are making ourselves available to help in situations like these,” he said.

Libya has gradually sunk deep into violence since Muammar Gaddafi was ousted in 2011, making the place particularly risky for asylum seekers.

The instability is caused by rival militia groups that are vying for power and resources as the central government remains weak and unable to enforce law and order across the country.

ksansone@timesofmalta.com

Additional reporting: Sarah Carabott.