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When they didn’t find any money, they beat me so hard that I could barely breathe
On the night of the 10th of December the respondent and 3 friends, all from Algeria between 24 and 26 years old left Lipa camp and started to walk towards the Croatian border. Once near the border they decided to sleep in the forest and in the morning of the 11th of December they started to walk again. At 1PM the group saw a Croatian border police car from which they managed to hide and around 4PM the respondent set out alone to look for water because one of his friends had stopped and couldn’t continue to walk due to thirst.
First sighting of Croatian Border police
At 8PM on the way back to his friends after getting water, the respondent was stopped by a Croatian border police car with two officers inside. After a few minutes a second car arrived which was a regular car, and the people in it were not wearing uniforms. Finally a third car arrived, it was again a Croatian border police car with two more officers inside. This was the car that took the respondent back to the border. Since he didn’t have any money the officers took his phone. Once they stopped, they took the respondent out in a plowed area and told him to follow a distant light, saying that there would be something there. When the respondent arrived saw a mosque and try to enter it, but it was closed, so he started to sleep laying on the mosque’s wall. After a few minutes, a Bosnian police car and a regular car passed by. The regular car had one person, and the police car had two. The Bosnian police car stopped and searched the respondent for money. “When they didn’t find any, they beat me so hard that I could barely breathe. They threw the water bottle I had with me, carried me into the car, took me up to a mountain outside Bihać, and told me to go to another city.” The respondent reported that the two policemen were one short with blond hair, and the other, who was driving, tall and bald.
The respondent spent the night sleeping next to the church on top of the hill where he was brought by the Bosnian police officers, and in the morning of the 12th of December returned to Bihać, arriving around 9AM. Afterwards, he went to the JRS association. “I couldn’t eat or drink, and my breathing was laboured. There was a woman there—I don’t know if she worked with them—but she brought me some milk and helped me drink it.”
overview
4 people ,
from Algeria,
aged Between 24-26.