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When the men passed through the border fence, they were hit with electric shock from the electric wire

Date & Time 2017-11-24
Location Kelebija, Serbia
Reported by Rigardu
Coordinates 46.160317, 19.5579
Pushback from Hungary
Pushback to Serbia
Taken to a police station yes
Minors involved yes
WLTI* involved no
Men involved no
Age unknown
Group size 36
Countries of origin Pakistan, Somalia
Treatment at police station or other place of detention detention, photos taken, personal information taken, denial of food/water
Overall number of policemen and policewomen involved unknown
Violence used beating (with batons/hands/other), electric shock, dog attacks, theft of personal belongings
Police involved Hungarian police with uniforms, catchment and police station: several police, deportation: several border police with blue uniforms and two Hungarian military persons with two police dogs with masks, other group of 12 people several border police

On November 15th-24th. 2017, 36 men walked from Sombor, Serbia, across the Serbian-Croatian border, through Croatian territory and across the Croatian-Hungarian border. They walked without water and food, and were caught on November 24th. at 8am, by what was described as several (10-20) Hungarian police officers on a road, after about 3-4 hours of walking from the border-crossing, within Hungarian territory.

The men expressed their intention to seek asylum, and were transported to a police station nearby, less than one hour drive away. At the station several police officers took their personal details and noted their destination, while taking their personal details the police officers asked the minors to falsify their age, registering them as adults over the age of 18. The men once again expressed their intention to seek asylum. The police searched their bodies and belongings. They checked their mobile phones and memory cards and confiscated some of them, as well as their money and other valuable items, for example some watches and rings. The police took pictures but not fingerprints, and the men didn’t receive any written documents.

The respondent reports that all the men were placed in one small cell for about 12 hours. The men asked for food and water, but the police did not provide any. The police said that getting asylum is not possible is Hungary, that it’s only possible for minors and denied that the minors in the group were actually underage. On the 24th-25th, after being detained, the men were divided to 4 smaller groups, which were transported to different places on the Serbian-Hungarian border. The respondent stated that police (described as Hungarian border officials) and other officers thought to be army officials, pushed the men back to the Serbian side.

The treatment varied between these places. The interviewee, was in a group of 12 men, who were transported in a police van for about 3-4 hours to the Serbian-Hungarian border near Kelebija, Serbia, where they stated several Hungarian border police and two Hungarian “military officers” deported them to the Serbian side. The men were ordered to go back to the Serbian side without coming back, so they started to run away. At the same time the police opened the door of their van and released two police dogs. The dogs chased the men, attacked and scratched them. When the men passed through the border fence, they were hit with electric shock from the electric wire. When the men were trying to escape the dogs, they got injuries on their feet and some of them fell down and broke limbs.