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I was telling my brother that I was cold, and they screamed at me: "Shut up"

Date & Time 2022-04-10
Location Horgoš, Serbia
Reported by No Name Kitchen
Coordinates 46.1756319, 19.9843403
Pushback from Hungary
Pushback to Serbia
Taken to a police station yes
Minors involved yes
WLTI* involved no
Men involved yes
Age 14 - 23
Group size 5
Countries of origin Syria
Treatment at police station or other place of detention photos taken, no translator present
Overall number of policemen and policewomen involved 6
Violence used destruction of personal belongings
Police involved 3 hungarian police officers with dark blue uniforms; 1 hungarian police officer with light blue uniform; 2 hungarian police officers whose uniforms are not described; 1 police blue car; 1 white police van

The group of 5 people from Syria started to walk at 5 am from Majdan, Serbia on October 4th. After walking for three hours in Romanian territory they crossed the border between Romania and Hungary. They walked for about two hours in the Hungarian “jungle” (term used to refer to forested areas) until a car, that the respondents identified as a police blue car, appeared behind them, on the side of the street.

The respondent reports that 4 people (that he describes as “border police officers“) got off the car and told the group to stop. They threw away their phones and the power bank of one of the people and then kicked it, breaking it.

Then, the respondent recalls that the group stayed for 40 minutes sitting near the street, guarded by the officers, waiting for a van that they thought would have taken them back to Serbia. The respondents were telling the policemen that they were feeling very cold, but they answered that they could not do anything.

According to the respondent, the minor in the group was screamed at by the officers when he was trying to tell his brother that he was cold.

When the van arrived (according to the respondent, a white van, without windows and with no signs on it) they sat in the back, and the whole group was taken to the Horgoš border crossing, where pictures of them were taken inside a container before they were released into Serbian territory, around noon. The respondent noticed that inside the container there was a counter, and he thinks that it was counting how many people were pushed back that day.