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The soldiers laughed and mocked us as they beat us

Date & Time 2022-10-10
Location Border gate between Röszke and Horgos
Reported by No Name Kitchen
Coordinates 46.17590729, 19.9822861
Pushback from Hungary
Pushback to Serbia
Taken to a police station yes
Minors involved yes
WLTI* involved yes
Men involved yes
Age 11 - 50
Group size 20
Countries of origin Pakistan, Syria, Turkey
Treatment at police station or other place of detention detention, photos taken, denial of access to toilets, denial of food/water
Overall number of policemen and policewomen involved 12
Violence used beating (with batons/hands/other), kicking, pushing people to the ground, insulting, pepper spray, destruction of personal belongings, theft of personal belongings
Police involved 8 hungarian officers wearing camouflage uniforms; 4 hungarian border police officers (3 men, 1 woman); 2 military vehicles; 1 police van

The respondent reports that 20 people from Turkey, Pakistan, and Syria, including 1 woman and 2 children, were pushed back on the 10th of October from Hungary to Serbia, at the border gate between Hungarian village of Röszke and the Serbian village of Horgos.

On the 9th of October at night, a group of 25 people started walking from Serbia towards the Hungarian border for 3 km. After they had waited near the Hungarian border fence in the night, 20 people managed to cross the border, while 5 of them were left behind. The respondent stated that almost immediately 7-8 men, that according to the respondent resembled soldiers wearing camouflage uniforms, apprehended them.

The authorities, described as soldiers, reportedly lined people up, separated the women and two children, and forced the remaining 17 men to lay face down on the ground. The respondents describe:

“They beat anyone who looked up, we were kicked and punched so many times that we didn’t even know where on our bodies they hit us. They started walking on top of the people they forced to the ground, some on their backs, some on their heads.”

As they searched the transit grouo, they asked them where they were from, but the respondent said that no one answered out of fear, and they were reportedly beaten again with kicks, slaps, and batons for half an hour continuously as a result. After the beating, the respondent reports that the officers used pepper spray directly on people’s faces and broke their phones and powerbanks. The respondents says:

“As they beat us, they shouted at us in a language we didn’t understand and, as if that wasn’t enough, they laughed and mocked us.”

Afterward, they reportedly marched people in a line and put them in what was described as an armored military vehicle – a large white vehicle with a cage system inside. They were kept in this vehicle for about half an hour and were not even allowed to drink the water from their own bags.

Afterwards, they were then taken out of the vehicle and forced to walk for several kilometers, reportedly escorted by two military vehicles, one in the front and one in the back, and handed over to what the respondents refer to as 3 border police officers wearing dark blue uniforms. These officers put them in what was described as a white police van with blue stripes. After being kept in this vehicle for half an hour, they were brought to what the respondent referred to as the border police station building, where they recall that a policewoman took photos of their faces from different angles as they got out of the vehicle.

At the Horgos border gate, where there was a border police post, the group of 20 people were pushed back at around 10 am and they walked for several kilometers back to a Serbian village.