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They beat us with their bare hands “not only in our faces, but everywhere”
The main respondent is a 26-year-old man from Morocco. He reports that on Tuesday 23rd of April 2024 he was apprehended with 5 other people at the Croatian village of Ličko Petrovo Selo and was pushed back to Bosnia in the border control area on the main road (M5) through Bihac territory. The group was composed of 6 nationals of Morocco, all men between 23 and 27 years old. The group left Lipa camp on the 22nd of April at around 6 p.m. by taxi, which then left the group near Prnjavor (Bihac city), a small village on the border. The respondent then said that they walked for 4 to 5 hours in the forest to avoid the main M5 road, where the border crossing station is located. The group crossed the border at nighttime and reached the bus stop of Ličko Petrovo Selo on the Croatian side, where they were planning to take a bus to Zagreb in the early morning. They waited from 4 a.m. to 5:10 a.m., when the bus came and picked them up. After only 10-15 minutes of ride the bus pulled over where 2 police cars were parked. The respondent suspected that the bus driver informed the police of their presence on the bus, but hadn’t clear evidence since he was really tired and the group almost fell asleep immediately once in the bus. The group was asked to leave the bus, and the respondent described 4 police officers, 3 of them with dark blue uniforms, and one with dark blue trousers and light blue t-shirt, and all with a Croatian flag patch on the side of the sleeve, and all with guns. The respondent described the vehicles as one small white patrol police car with a blue stripe and with Croatian police signs on the side, and one white Volkswagen van without windows on the back, with a blue stripe, and with Croatian police signs on the side. When shown the image galleries, the respondent could recognise both the vehicles as part of Croatian Border police equipment, namely a Suzuki Vitara car and a Volkswagen T5 van.
After asking the group to leave the bus, the police officers took all phones and destroyed them and stole money from a member of the group. According to the respondent, the police officers beat the group members with their bare hands “not only in our faces, but everywhere”. The group did not ask for asylum, since they wanted to seek asylum in another European country. The whole group was then pushed into the Volkswagen T5 van and brought to the border with Bosnia in an approximately 30 minutes long ride. The police dropped them off at a parking of the border crossing point, from which the group started to walk towards Prnjavor (Bihac city) in a dirt road.
Since they had no phones, when they reached a bar by walking they asked the owner to call a taxi. The respondent then said that once the taxi came, they went back to Lipa camp.
overview
6 people ,
from Morocco,
aged 23-27 years old.