“We needed food and drink, but they did not give us anything to eat or drink for a day”

On the 11th of April, three men were walking next to the Drina river near the town of Loznica, along the Serbian border with Bosnia. At 9.30 pm, they were stopped by two people who reportedly wore dark blue and had ‘police’ written on their backs and with police badges on their chests. When shown images of Serbian authorities, one of the respondents identified them as Serbian police. The officers arrived in one small white and blue police car, and when shown images of Serbian police cars, he identified it as a Serbian rapid patrol police car. The respondent roughly pinpointed the location of the apprehension as 44°33'21.1"N 19°11'57.6"E and explained that: 

'Two policemen found us [...] when they found us, they informed the other police and six others came.'

All eight officers wore the same uniforms, as identified above. They arrived in another small white and blue car (same as above) and with one large dark blue van. The three men were asked by the police where they were from, and then their clothes were searched. They said they were then put in the back of the police van, which they were not allowed to leave for six hours, which apparently felt like a day. They said they were denied food and drink.

'We needed food and drink, but they did not give us anything to eat or drink for a day.'

The group was then driven for around 50 minutes to the town of Šabac, near where the respondents said they were held in what they described as a ‘prison’. This facility is most likely the Penal Correctional Institution in Šabac (Kazneno-popravni zavod u Šapcu). The respondents explained that they remained in the facility for 20 days.

One of the respondents, who was around 18-20 years old, said that he was slapped by a police officer on one occasion while he was being held in this facility. He said the police had entered his room early in the morning whilst he was sleeping, and he did not stand up when asked, so they slapped him across the face. Another respondent explained that he was fed pork ‘many times’ whilst in the facility, despite telling the people working there that he did not eat pork due to religious reasons. He said they lied to him, telling him that it wasn’t pork, but he realised it was.