This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
The police officers shot some gunshots in the air and told us: ‘this one in the air, the next one on one of you’
The main respondent is a 24-year-old woman from Tunisia. She reports that on Tuesday 10th of April 2024 she was apprehended with 5 other people at the Croatian village of Glina and was pushed back to Bosnia in the area of Bukovlje (municipality of Velika Kladuša). The group was composed of 4 nationals of Morocco and 2 nationals of Tunisia, three men and three women between 20 and 29 years old. The group left Borici camp on the 9th of April at around 2 a.m. and took a taxi for the border. The taxi left the group at Vrnograč (municipality of Velika Kladuša) after a 30 minutes ride. Since then they walked in the forest for almost the whole remaining night time, crossed the border at around 4-5 a.m., slept during the day for around 8 hours and started to walk again in the late afternoon, reaching a road nearby the village of Glina. At that moment the respondent witnessed a drone flying above them. After 1 hour, at around 6 p.m., the group was approached by two police officers driving a big van. The respondent described the police officers as wearing a black uniform, with matching trousers and shirts, with police signs on the chest and on the upper leg. One of them was wearing a balaclava but took it off, showing his face to the group. The respondent described the van as light coloured (probably grey or white), with police sign on the side, without windows on the back and grilles and gates on the back doors and front windows. Later on, a second van arrived, with two police officers. These 2 latter police officers, according to the respondent, were wearing dark blue uniforms, with matching trousers and shirts. The second van instead was of dark blue colour and without police signs on the side. After seeing the image galleries, the respondent could recognise the two police officers wearing dark blue uniforms as being part of Croatian Border Police, while wasn’t sure about the two officers wearing black uniforms whether being part to Croatian Border Police or Croatian Intervention Police. Regarding the vehicles the respondent could identify the second van as being a Citroen Jumper Van 35 Blue HDI 160, but couldn’t identify the first light-coloured one.
After the first police apprehension, the group was pushed on the ground by the 2 police officers and asked to lie down, facing the ground and placing their hands next to the head. At that moment the group was asked to handover their personal belongings and after was tapped down from the officers, who took phones, bags, food, water and cigarettes. One of the members of the group asked the police officers to keep at least one cigarette, but the police said no. Another member of the group, wanting to keep his own money and phone, tried to run away. After only some meters the police caught him and beat him with the sticks. Once coming back to the group, the officers behaved angrily and aggressively beat also all the other members still lying on the ground. The respondent tried to talk to the policemen in a calm way but was pushed violently again on the ground by one police officer. Due to this pushing the woman fell on a rock and broke her feet. When explaining in tears what happened and showing the officers her leg, one policeman said ‘I don’t care’ and insulted her both in English and Croatian. During this whole time, according to the respondent, the group could not ask for asylum, since the police officers didn’t let them speak and shouted at them ‘Bosnia! Bosnia!’. At this point the second dark blue van came, and the whole group was pushed into the first one and deported to the border. The ride took around 30-40 minutes, and the respondent described the driving as dangerous and reckless with no light inside the van. She also added: ‘they drove really fast and braked roughly, when the car turned we were pushed from one side to the other of the van’. Once left at the border, at already nighttime, the group asked the policemen to have back their money, phones and bags, but the police ignored the request and started to talk aggressively and in a bad way. According to the respondent, the police officers tried to force the group to cross the border back to Bosnia, but the group initially refused to. At this moment, when another car came with 4 policemen inside, the group felt threatened and decided to cross the border, since ‘we knew they were going to beat us again’. In the meantime, the police officers shot some gunshots in the air and said to the group: ‘this one in the air, the next one on one of you’. The respondent directly pointed out this latter car as a Mitsubishi L200 2015 in the image galleries. When asked about the uniform of the 4 police men driving the car, the respondent couldn’t describe them since the officers remained inside the vehicle.
After crossing the border, the group, left exhausted and without phones, had to walk for hours and asked for directions to reach again Bihac. Fortunately, they met a woman that gave them directions to catch the bus and paid the tickets for them. After reaching Bihac bus station, the group walked back to Borici camp. Once arrived at around 6 a.m., the respondent was brought directly to the emergency room of the hospital and received medical treatment for her leg injury. The photo attached to the present report was sent to us by the respondent and shows the plaster cast she had to keep for 3 weeks.
overview
6 people ,
from Morocco and Tunisia,
aged 20-29 years old.