Serbs accuse Croats: "They are the most brutal"

Serbs accuse Croats: "They are the most brutal"

This was announced by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Belgrade at a press conference.

The representative of that foundation for Southeast Europe, Vladan Jeremic, pointed out that collective expulsions, abuse and arbitrary arrests take place along the Serbian-Croatian border from 2016 to 2021, despite the efforts of civil society organizations to prevent it from happening.

The Croatian side denies allegations of inhumane treatment of migrants. Jeremic said that the Foundation, otherwise close to the German Left, supported the work of the author Nikola Kovacevic "Documenting Violations of Rights on the Border between Serbia and Croatia: Guidelines for Reporting, Advocacy and Strategic Advocacy", published this year.

According to Jeremic, the goal of Kovacevic's publication was to provide guidelines to civil society organizations on where, how and when to document and legally oppose illegal border practices along the Serb-Croatian border, Jeremic said.

Violent behavior does not happen in cooperation with the Serbian police, but outside the border crossings, with beatings, humiliation, theft of valuables and threats with weapons, said Milica Švabić from the Belgrade Center for Social Policy Development - Klikaktiv.

She pointed out that there are about 1.700 refugees in the three official migrant camps in Šid, and there are significantly more of them in abandoned buildings and tents in the forest and in the surroundings, that is.

Klikaktiv estimates that there are about 4.000 of them, including unaccompanied families and minors, who try to cross the border almost every day, exposing themselves to forced expulsion. According to "Večernji", this practice of illegal and violent expulsions of refugees from the territory of Croatia is still carried out on a daily basis, Švabić pointed out.

Although these expulsions also occur in Hungary and Romania, refugees testify that Croatian police are the most brutal in their expulsions, Svabic said, explaining that expelled people regularly report that Croatian police officers beat them with batons and rifle butts, and many suffered serious injuries, including fractures and head injuries.

Ana Ćuća from the Zagreb Center for Peace Studies said that "systemic violence of the Republic of Croatia against migrants" has been carried out since 2016, with theft of personal belongings and phones, beatings, confinement in basements, and attacks by police dogs. The victims are not only adults, but also children. It is not about individual cases, but about an order from the political top, whose avoidance is often not possible, pointed out Ćuća.

She emphasizes that activists of civic initiatives in Croatia are victims of police intimidation, because they point out the violation of human rights at the border of the European Union, estimating that the EU is also responsible for that.

The change in the EU's migrant policy has led to violence, pointed out Ćuća, stating that more and more Croatian police officers are anonymously providing information on the structure of the system of forced and illegal expulsion of refugees. It is about the policy of Brussels, for the stopping of which it is necessary to ask the EU members and the countries that bear the consequences, said Ćuća.