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His wrists hurt a lot because the handcuffs had been tightened too much

Date & Time 2023-04-02
Location Kelebia
Reported by No Name Kitchen
Coordinates 46.178882, 19.653556
Pushback from Hungary
Pushback to Serbia
Taken to a police station yes
Minors involved no
WLTI* involved no
Men involved yes
Age 22 - 27
Group size 4
Countries of origin Morocco
Treatment at police station or other place of detention detention, personal information taken, papers signed, no translator present
Overall number of policemen and policewomen involved 3
Violence used exposure to air condition and extreme temperature during car ride, insulting, tightly handcuffed
Police involved 3 Hungarian police officers wearing blue uniforms with a red patch on their arms, 1 police white van with a blue writing on the side and what the respondent identified as a Hungarian flag on the front.

The respondent is a young man from Morocco, he is 27-year-old. On the 31st of March he left the informal camp where he was temporarily living, near Horgoš, with 4 other Moroccan young men,  and they crossed the border at 3 AM. The respondent reported that the group walked 4 hours form the border into Hungarian territory, and that they took a train.

According to the respondent, after two days of travelling,  they got to Győr, Hungary. On Sunday the 2nd of April, 3 men got on the train and asked all passengers to show their identity card, passport and visa. The respondent described the 3 men as wearing blue uniforms with a red patch on their arms, and he identified them as Hungarian police officers. Reportedly, after that, the officers forced the group of five people off the train.

The respondent stated that they handcuffed them to each other, thus creating a row, and then loaded them into a vehicle. The vehicle was described as a white van with a blue writing on the side and what the respondent identified as a Hungarian flag on the front of the vehicle. The respondent stated that his wrists hurt a lot because the handcuffs had been tightened too much. According to him, when the group members tried to understand what was going to happen or simply to get an explanation, the people in uniform shouted at them to shut up and yelled at them aggressively. The respondent also said he was very scared as, being handcuffed to each other, the act of pushing one person causes all the other people to lose their balance as well.

After that, reportedly, they arrived at a police station in Budapest at around 3am. They were taken inside the building and interviewed. They were taken one by one, and the same people in uniforms started asking them their name, surname, nationality. Then, they had to disclose their phones’ passwords and, according to the respondent, the officers looked at all the pictures he had on his personal phone. They were further forced to sign some papers in Hungarian, without a translator being present.

At around 5 am, almost 2 hours after their arrival at the police station, the respondent stated that they were loaded again onto the same van and headed towards Serbia. The respondent further recalled that on the journey between Budapest and Serbia it was very cold inside the vehicle, it seemed that the air conditioning was switched on to make the conditions of the people in the back unbearable. Eventually, the officers drove the group back, near the town of Kelebia. The transit group then had to walk back almost 20 km to reach Subotica. The respondent specified that on the day of the interview his feet still hurt a lot. He also wanted to add that he is very shocked by the racist behaviour of the officers towards him and his friends.