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All Afghans are Talibans

Date & Time 2019-01-22
Location Obrežje, Croatia, official border crossing between Croatia and Slovenia
Reported by No Name Kitchen
Coordinates 45.84559714, 15.69630079
Pushback from Slovenia
Pushback to Croatia, Serbia
Taken to a police station yes
Minors involved yes
WLTI* involved no
Men involved yes
Age 15 - 19
Group size 3
Countries of origin Afghanistan
Treatment at police station or other place of detention detention, fingerprints taken
Overall number of policemen and policewomen involved 6
Violence used insulting, forcing to undress, theft of personal belongings
Police involved Six police officers, five men and one woman. They wore black uniforms, mainly speaking Slovenian

The group of three, one of them a minor (15, 18 and 19 years old) had attempted to transit Croatia inside a truck and made it to the Slovenian border. When the vehicle reached the official Croatian-Slovenian border crossing, the group noticed that the border authorities were having an argument with the driver at the scanner. Shortly after, six Slovenian officers came to check the truck and found the three of them hiding inside. They asked them to sit down and to put their hands up, before bringing them to a nearby building, supposedly the police station of the border crossing. In this building the officers asked the three of them to undress completely, and checked all of their clothes very carefully.

“He even check the underwear.”

They then confiscated their belongings, such as their bags and gloves and the three of them didn’t receive them back. At the police station, the group experienced verbal aggression from the officers who insulted them:

“All Afghans are Talibans!”

They had to stay around two hours at the police station, during which time their fingerprints were taken. The three of them expressed their intention to claim asylum, but were not given any chance to further this interest. The respondent repeated his request often:

“Every time, every second, every minute”, “Asyle, asyle, asyle”.

He also described that he avoided to say he was an English speaker, as he experienced physical violence from the officers during his last push-back after telling them that he spoke English. At some point, he entered the garage of the police station, and wanted to take a sweater lying there, but the officers ordered him not to. He described them as ‘mad’ at this point. The respondent argued that the weather was so cold and begged them to take it, while he was only wearing a T-shirt, but they refused.

After this incident, the Slovenian officers transferred the group to Croatia.

They were handed over to the Croatian authorities driven with a small car around eight hours until they reached the Serbian border. They were pushed-back at a railway track around the town of Tovarnik (HRV).

The weather was cold, it was snowing outside and the three of them only wore T-shirts. They walked back to Sid for about 2,5 hours and arrived there at 5 am on January 24.