They are Afghans, Syrians, Kurds or Pakistanis and try to flee repression or war. But the gates to the EU via the Western Balkans remain inaccessible.
Thousands of people are still blocked at the gates of the European Union, particularly in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. They regularly attempt the illegal crossing of the Hungarian and Croatian borders into south-eastern Europe, often after having paid the smuggling networks. In the first two months of this year, the Frontex agency recorded nearly 8,400 attempts in the Western Balkans, the vast majority of Afghans fleeing the murderous repression of the Taliban regime, but also Syrians, Kurds or Pakistanis .
>> MAP. The Balkan route, the second migratory route to enter the European Union after the Mediterranean.
To enter the European Union, these people take often dangerous routes. Those stuck in northwestern Bosnia often attempt difficult crossings of the mountains and rivers that separate the country from Croatia. Accidents are not uncommon during these attempts, and these illegal crossings of the Croatian border have become particularly complicated. With its integration into the Schengen area on January 1, Croatia has also benefited from significant financial support from the European Union and now has state-of-the-art equipment to monitor its 1,300 km of land border. And the methods of the Croatian police are particularly denounced by NGOs. For years, they have indeed reported cases of violence, particularly during “push backs”, these illegal refoulements which prevent people from applying for asylum. “The Croatian police are one of the worst in the world”, says Takuor. This 40-year-old Afghan was recently sent back to a refugee camp in Bosnia.
“When the police catch you, they beat you and they take all your clothes, your money and your phone. And then they send you back to Bosnia or Serbia.”
Takuor, an Afghan migrantat franceinfo
In recent weeks, these pushbacks have taken on an unprecedented scale. According to the local media, since March the Croatian authorities have been deporting hundreds of people to Bosnia-Herzegovina by bus, as confirmed by Silvia Maraone, head of the NGO IPSIA in Bihac. “A bilateral agreement signed between Croatia and Bosnia has started to be applied under which Croatia returns people to the Bosnian state. Even today there are thousands of people between Serbia and Bosnia who try to go through Croatia and then to other European countries”, she explains. According to the Danish Refugee Council, between January 2020 and December 2022, the Croatian police would have carried out more than 30,000 pushbacks at this border of the European Union. In 13% of cases, these expulsions, often violent, concerned children and families.