Late in the evening of March 22, 2019, A., M., and S. went on game, walking from the main squat of Sid, located at the abandoned factory Grafosrem. They were three boys, aged 16, from Afghanistan. In the night, when they arrived at the border crossing, they entered a truck, which was parked a few meters before the Serbian/Croatian Batrovci border. The truck driver was sleeping.
They managed to stay in this truck for three days and finally arrived in Vienna, Austria. As they wanted to continue to Germany, they bought a train ticket from Linz (Austria) to Frankfurt (Germany). But when they arrived at the border crossing in Passau,
“Two German federal police inspectors controlled them. It was around 8.15pm in the evening. One of them was called Mr. Stockinger.”
A. didn’t have any documents with him, only a phone, a power bank, the train ticket and 150 Euros. Therefore, they handed him a paper (see photos) saying he was born in 2003 (16 years old). At 8.25pm, the three friends were then sent back to the Austrian refugee camp of Traiskirchen some 20 km South of Vienna.
The three friends stayed five days in the camp, A. was staying in house number 5, first floor. They had to give their fingerprints and photos were taken. They also asked for asylum. A.’s asylum case number was 1223949404 and his card number 190311393. They were in contact with a female lawyer and translator, who A. described to his brother:
“She was quite big, with long black hair and a dark skin.”
She was originally from the province of Laghman, Afghanistan, and spoke in Farsi, later changing to Pashto. They wrote on the document of the food distribution that A. was born the 01/01/2001 (18 years old), while he said he is 16.
On March 29, A. booked a ticket to Milano, Italy, while S. and M. decided to stay a little longer in the camp. 20 minutes after the departure of the train, a controller asked for his documents.
“He showed them the documents the German police had given to him. And the ID card of the camp.”
It attracted the controller’s attention, that in some German documents, A. was 16 but the Austrian document said he was 18 years old. For this reason, he called the police. The police came and deported him to Hungary in a normal police car.
A. stayed six hours at the Hungarian border police station. There, he had to give his fingerprints once more. They called the woman lawyer to translate via phone between A. and the Hungarian police. The Hungarian police was wearing dark blue uniform showing the Hungarian flag.
“They only wore T-shirts, no jacket.”
The lawyer explained to A. that, due to the two different ages on the documents, his request for asylum was canceled. She also explained that, if he would try to enter Austria again, he would be sent to prison for six months to be deported again afterwards. He was forced to sign a document for deportation:
“Police say you sign here for deport but he said ‘no, you kill me first’. I don’t want to sign here.”
They used an electric taser in his fore-arm to make him sign, which he finally did. He then had to wait in a small room. They took his money, which was by then 200 Euros, and all his documents and cards, but let him keep his phone.
Afterwards, they put him in a Hungarian police van and deported him to the Serbian border near Subotica. After they left, A. took a break:
“He made a fire in the forest and didn’t move for some hours.”
Then, he started walking three hours to reach the Subotica train station. He took a train back to Sid.
His brother, who translated the interview, explained that A. is traumatized since. He refuses to speak to anyone, walks all night and had several epileptic seizures. Before his game, he was used to being a very coherent and enthusiastic person. His family in Afghanistan doesn’t have more money they could send to him for another game. They had put all their hope in this one game and A. had paid all the money to the smuggler to Austria. A.:
“Crazy, I’m crazy.”