World media exposed Croats: They burn, beat, they are brutal

Today, the Guardian published photos showing burnt belongings, including documents needed to apply for asylum, as the latest alleged evidence of brutality on EU borders.

"Croatia’s border police force appear to be burning clothing, mobile phones and passports seized from asylum seekers attempting to cross into the European Union before pushing them back to Bosnia and Herzegovina," writes the Guardian today.

The humanitarian organization No Name Kitchen (NNK) shared with the Guardian a report with photos of burnt belongings, along with testimonies about alleged sexual assaults and beatings by the Croatian police, Zagreb's N1 TV reports.

Every day, thousands of people from south Asia, the Middle East and north Africa, and, increasingly, China, attempt to cross the Balkans heading for the EU. There are few facilities, with people forced to spend most of the difficult journey in makeshift camps or train stations.

Many are stopped by Croatian border police and searched, with some reportedly robbed and violently pushed back into Bosnia-Herzegovina, where thousands of asylum seekers can be stranded in often freezing temperatures, writes the Guardian.

Such pushbacks are an apparent violation of international law, which states that asylum seekers must have the opportunity to file their request for asylum once they are within a country’s borders.

NKK has detailed the locations of eight large “burn piles” where Croatian police officers allegedly incinerated people’s personal belongings and documents they need to apply for asylum once they reach the EU.

Burnt smartphones could also contain evidence of abuses carried out by the Croatian police in the form of videos and photos taken by asylum seekers, said NKK.

NNK representatives travelled to the Bosnia-Croatia border at the end of 2023 and in early 2024 to find evidence of burn piles mentioned in the testimonies of people pushed back from the border, but which it had not previously verified.

The organisation identified the sites in areas known for pushbacks and documented ID cards, half-burnt bags, hundreds of phones, shoes, glasses, official government documents, power banks, money and other everyday objects that corroborate the testimonies.

It also collected testimonies of alleged violence by the border police.

In December 2023, a 23-year-old pregnant Moroccan woman said that she was sexually assaulted by Croatian officers before the guards burned her belongings, along with items of other members of her group.

The woman, who was travelling with her husband, another woman and three minors, said that a border guards subjected her to an invasive strip-search, including inside her genitalia, and threatened to rape her.

''The search “was the worst thing to happen to me'', the woman said. ''I prefer he beat me than to search me in that way'', said the Moroccan woman, adding that she saw policemen burning items taken from migrants.

According to another testimony, from last November, a group of four Moroccans were allegedly beaten by police officers who then set fire to their belongings.

The police allegedly forced the men to walk barefoot over the hot ashes, threatening them with batons. According to NNK, the Moroccan man who provided the testimony sustained burns on the soles of his feet.

Despite testimonies from aid workers and journalists, Croatia has consistently denied it has pushed back asylum seekers to Bosnia or used violence against them.

NKK recently made a submission to the UN’s special rapporteur on torture with its evidence.

A spokesperson for Croatia’s interior ministry said it had a “a zero-tolerance policy for any potential illegal activities committed by its personnel”, and that it had an independent mechanism for supervising police conduct.

“It is totally inconceivable that such an incident would occur without being reported to the police right away”, the Ministry of Internal Affairs stated, commenting on the testimony of a pregnant Moroccan woman and four Moroccan men.

The spokesperson said that it was often people smugglers who were responsible for violence and theft at the border, and that the police had documented “many instances of fabricated claims”.

They also state that "migrants sometimes destroy items they carry with them and discard personal belongings when trying to cross the border illegally".

The Guardian reminds that in 2019, the European court of human rights ruled that Croatian police were responsible for the death of a six-year-old Afghan girl, who together with her family was forced to return to Serbia by crossing train tracks. She was struck and killed by a train and died on the spot.