The respondent group for this testimony had left in from Sid, Serbia in the last week of September via a truck which had made its way into Slovenia, at which point they had left the vehicle and attempted to continue their journey on foot . The group of 3 men later described being stopped by local people and later on police in the northern outskirts of the Slovenian city of Novo Mesto. There were local people there who were insulting them and after the police arrived. There was 1 police cars with 2 police officers wearing light blue police uniforms. After 5 minutes a black civil car was described as arriving to the scene with 1 civil police officer wearing civil clothes as well as 2 additional police officers.

“I was feeling very bad, because I was in the truck for 2 days and all my water was finished.”

Upon their apprehension, the police officers were described as asking them a lot of questions: how did you arrive, from which way did you arrive, which road did you arrive on and so on. There was a minor in the group of people-on-the-move and he spoke some English. The police officers told him to come to them and after which point the officers were described as being physically violent with the group. The respondent described that he almost fell unconscious and he was crying. The officers reportedly asked the respondent again about how he arrived to Slovenia and he answered that they had arrived by vehicle. Allegedly, the officers told him he was lying and were physically violent with him again.

After around an hour, a police van arrived with 2 additional police officers inside. The police van took drove the group to the police station at Obrežje border crossing. They were in the van for around 40 minutes. They put them in a very small room, where there was already one person-on-the-move. The people-on-the-move did not receive water or food, even though they asked for it. Just one of the police officers was wearing a medical mask. The toilet was inside the room and the smell was very bad. The police officers took all of their clothes, even underwear.

“They made us naked in front of everybody.”

The Slovenian police officers took their Serbian camp cards and did not return them. They also took people-on-the-move’s phones and wrote names on them. They returned them after some time. The police took the people-on-the-move’s fingerprints. The respondent asked them if they will give him stay. The police officer said no, because you don’t want to stay here, you want to go to Italy.

“The place wasn’t for humans. This jungle is better than that place.”

They spend the night in that room, and during that another person was brought to the room, so they were a group of 5 people. The next morning they were transferred to Croatia. According to the respondent, a police van took them from the room to the Serbian border. According to the respondent, it was the same van the whole way.

The van reportedly stopped in Zagreb to take 8 more people-on-the-move. They were driving for around 4 hours. Finally, the van arrived to the push back location – on the fields near Batrovci border crossing. The respondent saw there were 2 Croatian police officers in the van wearing black clothes. In addition, at the location there was a police car waiting with 2 Croatian police officers. The Croatian police officers took phones from 3 people and money from everybody who had euros. They did not take the Serbian dinars from the group. The respondent had a prescription paper from doctor for medicine and they took it from him. He told them he cannot receive the medicine he needs without it, but they still took it and did not return it to him.