Physical and sexual violence, harassment, extortion, theft and the inability to apply for asylum: not only violence at the external and internal borders of the European Union has become “Systemic and generalized”, but the practice of illegal refoulements has “Standardized”, to become a “Border management tool”, according to a report published Thursday, December 16 by seven European NGOs, the third of its kind since the start of the year.
Between January and November 2021, the associations, based in Italy, Hungary, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Greece, North Macedonia and Belgium, united within the Protecting rights at borders initiative, collected testimonies covering nearly 12,000 incidents. One third of the cases occurred at the border between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 18% of them, the refoulements concerned families. In the lead, the Afghans, who represent about 30% of the migrants heard.
According to Charlotte Slente, general secretary of the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), these 12,000 incidents are just “The tip of the iceberg”. They do, however, allow some conclusions to be drawn. First, the number of refoulements does not seem to be decreasing, on the contrary. Extreme violence, on the other hand, has decreased: “Beatings or dog bites are less frequent”, notice Mme Slente.
Chain repressions
She sees it as an effect of the media coverage of certain incidents. States, she said, make sure “That human rights violations are not visible”. However, this development is particularly worrying: “It is almost as if pushbacks have become acceptable and, to a certain extent, implicitly approved by some member states, when the violence does not reach extremes causing a general outcry”, observe Mme Slente.
Arrested with his friend in Croatia, fifteen kilometers from the Slovenian border, in early July, a young Afghan recounted the beatings inflicted by the police: “They found two phones and 140 convertible marks [monnaie bosniaque, soit 71 euros], which they immediately confiscated. One of the policemen hit us in the ribs with a baton several times because we did not want to give out the passwords. [des téléphones]. “ The two boys were sent back to Bosnia.
The report also mentions “Chain repressions”. An example: these Eritrean and Somali migrants, who arrived in Italy in July, who informed the Italian police officers that they wanted to apply for asylum, but who were sent back to Slovenia, where other police officers were waiting for them. They claim to have spent three days locked in a building, without water, food or access to toilets. Finally, the Slovenian police transferred them to their colleagues in Croatia, who took them back to the Bosnian border.
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