On July 7th. 2018 at 4 am., a group of ten men aged 20-24, all from Algeria started walking from Velika Kladusa in order to cross the Croatian-Slovenian border. In a forest, near Karlovac, the men were caught by a group of 5 plain-clothed men, armed with sticks and pistols. These men drove the whole group to a police station in Karlovac, where they were handed over to local police officers. In the police station, the men had to give their names, nationalities and parents’ names.
The police officers were verbally attacking the men, expressing their disapproval of Arabic and Muslim people. The whole group was held in the police station for the whole day without water and food. One of the men expressed his wish to apply for asylum in Croatia, but the officers ignored his request. At around 10pm, a new group of 6 police men in police uniforms and face masks took the men into a police van and transported them to the Bosnian border. At the border, the police men took the group out of the car, stole 6 mobile phones and 700€ from them and broke 4 of their phones (see picture). After that, they were beating them with sticks on their backs, legs, arms and hips while shouting: “Go, go, go!”.