The respondent had started her journey into Croatia from Serbia with her daughter and son-in-law and around 7 other people-on-the-move on September 13th. On the way, the group separated because they were afraid of the risk of being apprehended.

The respondent wanted to take the train from Vinkovci (HR) to Zagreb (HR). She was already sitting in the train when an officer watched her from the outside. The respondent inferred that the officers must have been in the train station because they had caught around 10 Arabic speaking people on a goods-train previously [45.300082, 18.802153]. They were holding the people-on-the-move in the train station while searching the other trains.

After the officer had looked at her for 5 minutes he went inside the train and asked for her documents. When she responded that she did not have any, he took her to a van and forced her inside. When she was inside she knocked on the front and told the officers that she wanted to seek asylum in Croatia. She said she was more than 35 km into the country and that they would have to give her asylum. She also said, she has documents that she is chronically sick and that she did not feel well in that moment. She was afraid of having a heart attack.

One officer came to the back of the van and let her out. She showed her documents and said she has diabetes and uses insulin as well as a spray for her heart disease. She expressed her intention to claim asylum again. The officer responded by taking all the documents and throwing them on the floor as well as taking her bag and emptying it. There was no insulin in there but her heart spray. The respondent described that the officer then threw everything back into the van and insulted her in Croatian. The respondent repeated her asylum claims and expressed the illegality of the officers’ actions. The officer told her something along the lines of “shut up” in Croatian and forced her back into the van. This incident happened in front of the train station with civilians watching.

There were two police officers. One was wearing light-blue uniform and the other dark blue. The respondent described that the officer in light-blue uniform was inclined to take her to the hospital but the other one was opposed.

After the van started moving the respondent fell unconscious. The fellow people-on-the-move in the van only had very little water that they sprayed into her face to wake her up. Inside the van, there were two people from Kosovo and the others were Arabic speaking and had started from Šid, Serbia as well. They knocked on the front of the van. The van stopped after approximately 5 minutes. The officers opened the Van and took her outside. Someone found her spray. After she used that, while still laying on the ground, the officers kicked her and threw her back into the Van.

“They grabbed me by the arms and legs, like garbage,”.

This happened about 2 times more. The people-on-the-move knocking as soon as she got unconscious, the officers stopping, taking her out and kicking her while she was laying on the ground, visible for the others in the van.

After that they turned back to the police station in Vinkovci [45.28811, 18.80701]. They had not left the immediate area of Vinkovci because of the constant stops due to the respondent’s health. In the police station, the respondent still felt unwell. There was a woman that had some medical knowledge that checked her blood pressure which was very low.

Realizing the crucial state of her they called an ambulance and took her to the hospital in Vinkovci [45.292558, 18.818958]. Inside the hospital they treated her with some kind of infusion. The respondent was shaking a lot and needed insulin. After around 2 hours a police officer in light-blue uniform takes her back to the police station in a van. There she was taken to the second floor and met by a woman in civilian clothes. The Croatian women only spoke Croatian with the respondent and asked her for her personal data.

The respondent described again expressing an intention to claim asylum in Croatia. In response, the Croatian women reportedly told her “No problem, sign this” and handed her a paper which the woman-on-the-move signed. There was no higher ranking officer in the station, reportedly because of it being Sunday night.

After that they took her and other people-on-the-move into the van with two police officers in dark blue uniforms and took them to the railways close to Tovarnik. There she was beaten with fists on her torso and she started crying which the officer believed it to be “a role” – or an act. The respondent still has pain in her lower back from the beating and kicking by the Croatian police.

The respondent told us “At least deport us in a proper way, hand us to the Serbian police or something” but the Croatian police does not care. “They behave very badly, unpolite. Only insulting us”

The indicated location in this report refers to the place of apprehension, not to the pushback itself.