Our latest report exposes intensified border violence and erosion of asylum rights in Europe – an immediate result of the EU Migration and Asylum Pact and the reforms to the Schengen Border’s Code.
They held a gun to the head of one child, and asked “Are you going back to Croatia?” whilst he replied “no, no , no, please do not hit me again”.
He told us that when night fell, people were forced to enter a tiny hut in the middle of nowhere. They were robbed of the last money they had and left stranded in the middle of nowhere by the smugglers. They spent two days of despair in this hut.
He said, “They released dogs on him but luckily the dogs had only bitten clothing and not skin.” T. later showed me where they’d smacked him on the arm with a baton. The Croatian police stole his money and his phone.
On April 10th the European Parliament will take the proposed Migration and Asylum Pact to a plenary vote.
France managed to uphold this practice for the past 8 years, causing an estimated thousands of pushbacks.
Physical violence inflicted on people on the move can be immortalised in images. Psychological violence they suffer cannot be represented in images.
Without the work of the organisations on the field who collect information and without the enormous courage of the people on the move many things would not be known.
An unaccompanied minor from Syria returned to Velika Kladuša with a video recording of a push-back in action