"Before the bus comes, police came quickly in the car, they saw us and they immediately came back"

The respondent is a 24-year-old man from Jordan. He was part of a transit group of 5 young men, traveling between the 15th and 16th of October 2025. The pushback occurred on Thursday, 16th October, from Croatia to Bosnia.

The respondent reported that the group walked for almost 3 days until they arrived in the area of Slunj, Croatia. At night, they split up - 3 of them remained in the forest waiting, while the respondent and another young man went to the city to get water and more clothes to face the cold temperature. He said they spent the night in the city and couldn't come back to the rest of the transit group because of different cars going through the city. He identified the cars as army and Croatian police due to the typology of vehicles and uniforms officers were wearing, respectively green and dark blue vests.

After arriving at Slunj Flixbus bus station, the respondent reported being apprehended together with the other young man by 2 men wearing blue jackets. 

"We were waiting, waiting, waiting for the bus to come, but before the bus came, the police came quickly in a car, they saw us and immediately came back. They said: Passport, please. [...] They took our phones, and they put them behind, then they called another big car. Luckily, they didn't take us to any police station".

The respondent reported that they waited at the bus station until two other men, whom he identified as border police because they were wearing light blue vests, arrived. The respondent started talking to one of the officers, as he seemed more reasonable than the others. He described the conversation as follows: 

'One of them, the young one, I was showing him my body (*pointing at scars*) and the paper with me, and I told him that I really want to go to Zagreb to continue because I’m in a very bad situation, I cannot go back to Jordan, it was very dangerous for me, I could die. And I think he felt that, he wanted to cry, but he said that these are the rules.'   

After that, the officers returned the phones and drove the two young men back towards Bosnia quite quickly. The respondent could not remember the exact location of the pushback, but he said they were definitely close to Bihać because they didn't have to walk too long to come back.

"Normal small car police, the first one. There were two of them, one was very young, maybe 19 or 20, he was a new policeman, and the other was around 42 years old. [...] It was the other car that brought us back; they were also okay, not like the first and second time we tried, which were so bad. Last time they took us in the car, drove us back, and gave us back the phones. They brought us very close to Bihać, I'd say one station before Bihać."

Even though this particular pushback did not contain physical violence, we want to highlight that all pushbacks are inherently violent and illegal. Additionally, the respondent kept repeating that 'this time it was okay,' referring to other pushbacks he experienced that were violent. Pushbacks without physical violence are more of an exception than a rule.