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The police officers hit each one of them several times on their shoulders and arms with police batons.

Date & Time 2021-08-04
Location Tovarnik, Croatia
Reported by No Name Kitchen
Coordinates 45.1552903, 19.14865494
Pushback from Croatia, Slovenia
Pushback to Serbia
Taken to a police station yes
Minors involved no
WLTI* involved no
Men involved yes
Age 23 - 32
Group size 3
Countries of origin Afghanistan, Pakistan
Treatment at police station or other place of detention fingerprints taken, photos taken, papers signed, no translator present
Overall number of policemen and policewomen involved 5
Violence used beating (with batons/hands/other)
Police involved 3 Slovenian border police officers, dark blue police van with a red line on the side, 2 Croatian police officers, Croatian police van

The respondent is a 23-years-old man from Afghanistan. He was traveling hidden in the back of a lorry with 2 other men, one also from Afghanistan and the other one from Pakistan.

On the 7th of April at about 7 pm they were detected by a scanner on the Slovenian side of the Italian-Slovenian border crossing near Trieste. Two police officers ordered them to leave the back of the lorry and took them into a room to search and interrogate them together with another officer. Then the police officers took their photos and fingerprints. No translator was present although neither the respondent nor his companions spoke English. They asked for asylum in Pashto and expressed their will to stay in Slovenia.

After 2 or 3 hours the respondent described that they were taken into a dark-blue police van with a red line on the side. After about half an hour of driving, they were handed over to Croatian police at the Croatian-Slovenian border. Two Croatian police officers took them inside a police station. The respondent and his companions were then searched and interrogated. Their fingerprints were taken and they were made to sign some documents written in Croatian. Again there was no translator present.

The respondent and his companions spent about one hour in that Croatian police station. Then they were taken into a police van. After 5 hours of driving at about 4 am in the morning they arrived in Tovarnik at the Serbian-Croatian border. They were let out of the van at the train tracks which cross the border and go in the direction of the Serbian town Šid. The respondent reported that the police officers forced them to walk in direction of the border. They hit each one of them several times on their shoulders and arms with police batons. It took them about 20 minutes of walking along the train tracks to cross the border and arrive back in Serbia.