Volunteer-driven humanitarian support for refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina
The following interviews were conducted by our volunteers starting in January of this year, following human rights reporting guidelines drafted by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee. Unless otherwise stated, all interviews were recorded and conducted in the victim’s native language through our translator. Personal identifying information has been removed for reasons of safety and anonymity.
Accompanying photographs do not always correspond to the specific described incident, but were all taken within the past year at the Serbian-Hungarian border area.
I tried to cross the Hungarian border near Palic. We were four people, an Afghan family of three – a man a woman and 14-year old boy – and myself. We didn’t manage to cross, we got caught on the Serbian side. The Hungarian border police saw us from far away – they were already there when we came. We were laying on the ground on the Serbian side of the border when they found us. It was ten at night, about half a kilometer from the border fence. Continue reading ““They let us keep one shoe each””
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. Continue reading ““They beat the small children. They beat the children so bad they began crying””
I crossed the Hungarian border near Horgoš in a group of forty people. Some of us ran through the border and ran away. Fourteen people including me stayed behind and got caught. Six or seven police cars came with two or four police officers in each of them. They had two dogs with them.
The first thing they did was spray our eyes with gas. Then they made me and three other people take our shoes off and stand in the snow. They were hitting us with police batons and kicking. Continue reading ““They made [us] take our shoes off and stand in the snow””