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Because of that situation, I lost my baby.

Date & Time 2019-03-20
Location Turjanski, 30km away from Croatian/Bosnian border
Reported by [Re:]ports Sarajevo
Coordinates 44.80040635, 15.53971229
Pushback from Croatia
Pushback to Bosnia
Taken to a police station unknown
Minors involved yes
WLTI* involved yes
Men involved yes
Age 2 - 4
Group size 30
Countries of origin Afghanistan
Treatment at police station or other place of detention
Overall number of policemen and policewomen involved unknown
Violence used beating (with batons/hands/other), insulting, destruction of personal belongings, theft of personal belongings
Police involved police officers with vans and cars

The respondent is a pregnant woman and mother of two children aged two and four. In a group of 30, she left to cross the border, walking for four days through forests and mountains until the authorities detected them.

“We saw that they were so angry, I thought they want to kill us.”

The officers said:

“Open the phone, we want to watch what do you have.”

They knew that the group had probably saved the locations of their route on their phones. When the group handed over their phones, they broke some of them. The officers pushed all 30 individuals into a small car. The respondent described being insulted by the officers during this process.

“We sat there, it was very hot. And I was so tired.”

The respondent saw that they beat some men with their hands, but not the women. The officers were described as saying said:

“You shouldn’t come anymore. When we see you again we will do bad stuff with you all. Don’t come anymore!”

The respondent reflected that during this time she was scared.

“It was so hard for us.”

The officers brought the woman and her children back to the camp in Bihać, where she declared her intention to seek asylum, also telling them that she was pregnant.

“I told them that I’m pregnant, I need to go to the doctor, I felt pain, and we didn’t eat for two days, we didn’t have water.”

Nonetheless, the officers refused to let her leave the camp. They neither had to give their fingerprints nor to sign any papers.The respondent expressed her frustration with her situation at the end of the report:

“I don’t know what I can do. With small children, the situation here in the camp is not good, everything is very hard. We don’t have enough food, we don’t have a good bathroom, it is not good for children. The shower, everything is very bad. There are so many people here. We have to share the room, I live with another family, everyone else do the same. It’s really difficult for families to live like this….Since four years I [have been travelling]. I was in Turkey, Greece, Serbia, and then here and everywhere it is the same. I don’t know what can I do now. I just want to make a beautiful life for my children.

“It is a really hard situation for refugees right now in Bihac.”