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The individual heard the officer firing about 10 warning shots as they fled

Date & Time 2019-03-21
Location Donji Vaganac, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Reported by [Re:]ports Sarajevo
Coordinates 44.91202502, 15.72639318
Pushback from Croatia
Pushback to Bosnia
Taken to a police station no
Minors involved yes
WLTI* involved no
Men involved yes
Age 17 - 25
Group size 6
Countries of origin Morocco, Algeria
Treatment at police station or other place of detention
Overall number of policemen and policewomen involved 3
Violence used beating (with batons/hands/other), kicking, gunshots
Police involved Three male Croatian police officers wearing dark blue uniforms. Each officer had a pistol and a baton. One Croatian police jeep.

At around 6 am on March 21, 2019, the group of six men were walking along a dirt road, big enough for vehicles passing. After they crossed the Croatian border, visible through a large sign saying “Welcome to Croatia”, they continued on the road. They were in the vacinity of Donji Vaganac.

After around 20 minutes, they saw one Croatian police officer. He was wearing a dark blue uniform without cap and carried a pistol and a baton. One of the individuals instantly raised his hands, saying:

“No problem, I go Bosnia.”

When they noticed the police officer making a call on his radio device, they ran away to the direction they came from. The individual heard the officer firing about 10 warning shots as they fled. They ran for 10 minutes and managed to cross the border to the Bosnian side, when a white jeep with the Croatian police insignia followed them across the border. The car stopped and a different officer than the first one got off the car, yelling:

“Stop! Stop!”

The three police men brought the group back to the Croatian side of the border. At this point the interviewee remembers one police man beating them while one sat in the car and another police man observed the situation. They hit them for about five minutes in their arms and legs. The police screamed:

“Go back to Bosnia.”

So the six of them ran away again to the Bosnian side. This time, the Croatian police didn’t follow them. The group walked for 12 km to a town they remembered as Rujnica and slept in the forest near the town until nightfall.