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“The military and that policeman… they aren’t human. No mercy, no humanity, nothing.”
At around 3pm on January 21st, a group of 23, most from Morocco with ages ranging from 36 to as young as 15, were tortured and pushed back over the Croatia-Bosnia border. After spending the night in the Bosnian side of the forest, the group made an attempt to cross, aiming for Boričevac, a small border town in Croatia. Almost instantly after crossing the border, they were intercepted by a single police officer on a secluded forest road.The solo policeman spotted them and began firing his gun; three rounds in the air and four in the ground. Most followed his instructions to lie face down on the ground but four young Egyptians tried to run. They were chased by the police officer and were the first to be beaten. They were kicked, stepped on, and hit with a baton; their faces were not spared.
Location where the pushback took place
The officer turned his attention to the people lying face down, and instructed them to get up onto their knees so as to be identified. At one point, he asked someone if he was from Morocco; he said yes. As he got up, he was beaten back down onto the ground. The officer did this to most of them, and the cycle being told to get up and getting beaten back down continued multiple times. Later on, military backup arrived in light blue jackets, seemingly Croatian border guards. The two officers, one woman and one man, stripped everyone naked and continued the beating for at least 30 minutes. They were left with nothing but a pair of underwear and a shirt each, and were told that all the confiscated possessions would be burned. Some explicitly expressed their intention for asylum but were ignored. They watched as an Egyptian minor was beaten to the point of breaking a finger.
All 23 were then shuffled into a van and driven for around one-and-a-half hours to a remote, high-altitude location in Bosnia, where they were dumped and instructed to walk back. It took two-and-a-half hours of walking, without shoes or clothes, before they reached an abandoned building where they could tend to their wounds. The young Egyptian’s hand was swollen and many were covered in bruises.
overview
23 people ,
from Egypt and Morocco,
aged Between 15-36.