A group of 10 men on the move had been walking for two weeks before they were caught on September 2nd. 2018. Four Slovenian police officers wearing blue uniforms apprehended the men near Obrov, Slovenia. Two police officers took their pistols out of their holsters, and told the group to stop.

The men were told to sit down while they were searched. All of their belongings were taken. Then the group was transported in a police van for about half an hour, to a highway. They were taken out of the van in the early evening. They had been transported to a motorway border crossing, on the frontier between Slovenia and Croatia. On the Slovenian side the men were interrogated at a police station, giving their names and photographs to the officers as well as their nationality, paternal name and age. When they asked for asylum the officers replied simply “no”.

Afterwards the Slovenian police escorted them in silence across the tarmac area,
handing them over to a detachment of Croatian border police (identified by their lapels) who wore blue uniforms. In the custody of the Croatian police, the group was immediately taken to a container by the side of the border crossing. The room was unfurnished, with only one toilet and the men were locked in it overnight without food and water. One man described how he had to pay the Croatian police officers to buy them something from a shop. He used his own money (which had already been confiscated). In the morning they were woken up and taken outside onto the concourse of the border crossing.

A Croatian police combi-vehicle was waiting for them and deported them   at approximately 10:30. All ten men were loaded into the back, despite the lack of space and bad air. The van drove for around 5 hours. At one point all men of the group were feeling physically sick and everyone was vomiting.

They were let out at a border location to the east of Velika Kladusa. The rural spot was familiar to some of the men from previous push backs from Croatia. At the border the police officers told them to walk back to Bosnia. One of the group asked for his phone to be returned but the officer simply took it and broke it in front of him by removing the battery and scratching the contact point for the sim (irreparable damage see pictured below). The officers further took 100 euros, that had been seized from another person, and tore it in half in front of the men. At this point it was around 16:00 and the group had too walk back until late at nigth, without the money for a bus.