About one week ago I crossed the Hungarian border. It was near Bački, sometime around midnight. We were between thirty and thirty-five people, there were four or five minors and ten to fifteen people my age and older. We got through on the first try and we kept on walking for about two hours. We saw a helicopter above us, it had a flashing light and they saw us. Then about forty police officers arrived and there were some women with them. They were kicking us as well. We hid in an apple orchard between the trees but they found us.
They caught us. They didn’t say anything, just started hitting us.
They didn’t ask any questions beforehand. They were beating us for half an hour. Sometimes they were hitting us with black batons sometimes kicking us. I got kicked right in the stomach. There was a tall man, he was hitting us the most. They had three or four dogs and were using them to scare us, releasing them on us and pulling them back. They made us take our clothes off and searched our pockets and our things. Anything that was in our bags they kicked it out. When we tried to take our clothes back they were kicking us. Out of fear we just left our things there.
Then they took us to the van and forced us in by kicking us and hitting us with batons on our shoulders and backs. They took us to the border and got us out of the van. They were grabbing us and pulling us out. They were still hitting and slapping us. They made us stand in a line again at the border and took individual pictures of our faces. Four or five of us had to read a paper but I wasn’t one of them. The paper said something like: You came illegally, why did you come illegally?
From the moment they caught us to the moment they deported us they were continuously beating us.
They opened the gate and kicked us out or pushed us out by grabbing us by the heads. A Serbian police car arrived. They used to ask us if the Hungarians had beaten us, but this time they didn’t. We went to Horgoš camp. Nobody asked us anything. Nobody asked if we were okay, if we were beaten. After this all our clothes were ripped and we slept outside. The next day we walked back to Subotica.
From the moment they caught us to the moment they deported us they were continuously beating us. The sun was rising when we entered into Serbia. I haven’t told you any lies. I have not exaggerated anything. They beat the elderly. They beat the small children. They beat the children so bad they began crying.
This is the whole story. We pray that God saves us from this hardship. We’ve come here and our lives are worse than they were when we were at home. Even dogs have a better life here. We never thought that we could ever be treated this way and that anyone could ever treat us that badly. We’ve left our small children at home for the chance of their lives getting better, but all that has happened is that our lives have gotten worse. How can I tell you… Where can we go? We can’t go forward, we can’t go backwards. We’re in such a horrible situation. Nobody understands us. Nobody speaks our language.