In the show Potraga (Search) on RTL, disturbing footage was published in which people with monkey caps beat migrants and then forcibly directed them across the tributary of the river Korana from the territory of Croatia to the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
The video also shows one of the masked men shouting “Go to Bosnia” after hitting the migrant with a stick.
This was filmed in June during an eight-month journalistic survey in which RTL’s team participated together with colleagues from the investigative journalism network Lighthouse Reports from the Netherlands, Swiss SRF Rundschau, German ARD Studio Vienna, ARD Monitor, French Liberation, Dutch Pointer, Novosti, and der Spiegel.
Investigative journalists Klaas van Dijken and Lamia Sabicrecorded this event with a camera near Sturlic on the BiH side.
Violent deportations, so-called pushbacks, expulsions from Croatian soil with the use of force in which the police confiscate mobile phones, personal belongings, and documents are the testimonies of refugees that have so far been reported not only by numerous domestic and foreign media but also by almost all domestic and international NGOs.
“We carefully reviewed the video and found that the men were wearing specific jackets, sewn with long sleeves. Analyzing them, we concluded that it was unusual for them to wear such, sewn jackets, and it was a warm, summer day. Then we compared a photo of a jacket that can be seen in the footage with the official jacket of the Croatian Intervention Police, and it is obvious that it is exactly the same type of jacket. It has the same zipper, side zippers, and the same pattern, the way the jacket is stitched, ” van Dijken explained.
“Another element in the video that we analyzed is the tonfa-bat used by three of the men we filmed, with which asylum seekers were beaten. Tonfa is being given only in the Intervention Police in Croatia,” van Dijken pointed out.
The head of Lighthouse Reports coordinated the journalistic investigation on the borders of Romania and Greece as well. Many pieces of information point to the conclusion that a similar practice as in Croatia is also being implemented at other European borders, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
