The 22-year-old men from Afghanistan had been in Sid for seven months and states that he went on game around 50 times.

April 16 was the day of one of his attempts. He left the abandoned factory in Sid at 9 pm and arrived near the Croatian border at 1 am. Together with six other people on the move, he entered a truck which started moving towards Croatia the next morning at 7 am. The authorities detected him on the scanner. They opened the door and took him and the others out of the truck and pushed them into a white van with a windowless backspace.

“Inside it was like a jail.”

There were around five or six officers, all of them described as wearing an official uniform with the Croatian flag sewed on it. Around 11 am the people on the move were taken to jail where they had to wait until 2 pm without water, food or the possibility to use the toilet. In the jail an officer asked the respondent for his forename, family name and age.

After this, he was handed out a paper written in Serbian. When he asked about its content, they just told him to sign it. When he refused, the officer beat him up and kicked him in his knees.

One officer showed him a baton, shouting:

“I hate you!”

Afterwards the group of seven was deported to Serbia. After a three-hour walk, they arrived back to the abandoned factory in Sid at 5pm.