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His friend was so badly wounded in his face that he couldn’t eat and chew for days

Date & Time 2017-09-18
Location Lužani Zagorski, Croatia
Reported by No Name Kitchen
Coordinates 45.1473002, 19.16496277
Pushback from Croatia
Pushback to Serbia
Taken to a police station unknown
Minors involved no
WLTI* involved no
Men involved no
Age unknown
Group size 11
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), destruction of personal belongings, theft of personal belongings
Police involved Croatian police officers with two vehicles

In the night between the September 18th and 19th, 11 people were pushed-back to Serbia. The police caught them before the Slovenian border, about 20 km from the border between Croatia and Slovenia. They asked for asylum, but the Croatian police refused, explaining that the Porin Hotel doesn’t have space anymore.

They were taken back to Serbia in 2 vehicles, one with 6 and the other one with 5 people. The interviewee describes the vehicles as ‘a big box without windows’, and as such they could not see where they were going. The police officers brought them back to the train station at the border, and ordered them to go to Serbia.

This was not the first time our interviewee tried to reach Europe. Nine months ago the police had caught him and had taken everything he had (his luggage, his food, his mobile) and burnt everything. Two weeks before he had been beaten and the police stole his mobile phone, pretending to check it, and never giving it back. He even asked for his mobile back, explaining he needed to join his family, explaining how expensive a mobile is.

This time they were 6 people who were caught by the police and all of them were beaten, in front of a police office. The police officers asked them to sit down, and beat them one by one. The officers that beat them were not wearing uniforms and were not the officers that drove them back to the border, but others officers in civilian clothes. One of our interviewee’s friends was so badly wounded in his face from the beating that he couldn’t eat and chew for days.