Croatia denies migrant border attacks after new reports of brutal pushbacks

Croatia has dismissed allegations of violence by its border patrol after new reports emerged this week of border police allegedly beating, robbing and sexually abusing migrants.

On Wednesday the head of home affairs for the European Commission, Ylva Johansson, said that she was taking the allegations “very seriously”.

The Croatian government said that following the latest accusations, it would launch an investigation with the goal of removing any doubt about police conduct and punishing any possible misdemeanours.

Yesterday the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) said they had taken new testimonies from a group of 23 migrants intercepted on Monday in woods near the Croatian–Bosnian border.
An asylum seeker shows their wounds after allegedly being beaten by Croatian border police.
An asylum seeker shows their wounds after allegedly being beaten by Croatian border police. Photograph: Courtesy of DRC medical teams

The group, mostly from Bangladesh, had all entered the country from Bosnia. They say they stopped to sleep but awoke to find themselves surrounded by men armed with truncheons, pistols and night vision goggles — the Croatian police who patrol the EU’s longest external border.

“‘How many of you are gay?’ asked a policeman, wearing a black uniform and a balaclava,” one Bangladeshi man said to the DRC medical team.

“At that point, we were stripped naked and ordered to form a line and put our hands on the shoulders of the man in front. They had just robbed us, beaten us with batons and wooden sticks.”

“Are you gay?”, the Croatian official allegedly asked one of the migrants before sexually assaulting him with a tree branch.

It is the second allegation of sexual violence documented in less than a week by members of the Croatian police against asylum seekers in the Bosnia-Croatia border region. The latest testimonies suggested an increase in the brutality used in pushbacks on the Bosnia-Croatian border.