Croatian police accused of sexually abusing female asylum seeker | European Union News

A lady from Afghanistan says she was sexually abused, pressured to strip bare, held at knifepoint and threatened with rape by a Croatian officer after crossing into Croatia from Bosnia in search of asylum, in accordance with a brand new file (PDF) compiled by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC).

The girl, whose title is omitted out of respect for privateness, mentioned that she and three others, an aged man and two kids, crossed the border to Croatia close to Velika Kladusa, Bosnia on the night of February 15.

Shortly afterwards, the group was stopped by a Croatian police officer, who continued to level a rifle at them till extra officers arrived on the scene.  When the group mentioned they had been in search of asylum, an officer “laughed and insulted them whereas they had been asking him to have understanding”, the girl mentioned.

She mentioned she was repeatedly subjected to sexual abuse and compelled to strip bare throughout a search close to the border. The officers beat the group of asylum seekers with batons on their backs and legs as they had been pressured to stroll again to Bosnia, she mentioned.

The police mentioned in a press release on Wednesday they had been investigating the reported sexual abuse,
The Related Press information company reported.

The police mentioned an preliminary look into allegations collected by the Danish Refugee Council group discovered no police intervention towards any feminine migrants on February 15, when the incident reportedly befell.

“We’re completely horrified by such allegations and [that] such behaviour is attributed to a Croatian policeman,” the assertion mentioned.

“Identical to in all earlier situations when Croatian police had been accused of violence towards migrants, fast actions had been taken to test the allegations.”

The DRC report featured different testimonies detailing bodily abuse, inflicting accidents to the migrants.

A complete of 23,853 folks have reported pushbacks to Bosnia since Could 2019, the report mentioned.

The council documented 547 folks being pushed again from Croatia in January and February, with 35 % experiencing abusive and degrading therapy and 32 % reporting bodily abuse and assault.

A 3rd of respondents mentioned they had been denied entry to an asylum process.

The DRC report famous that pushbacks, violent or not, violate the EU asylum, migration and Schengen acquis, but they had been reported day by day on the EU’s exterior borders.

“The testimonies recorded by DRC are really stunning,” mentioned Charlotte Slente, secretary-general on the DRC. “Regardless of the decrease variety of pushbacks recorded by DRC in 2021 – which may largely be attributed to harsh climate circumstances, as occurred initially of 2020 – the patterns of reported violence and abuse on the Croatia-BiH border stay unchanged.”

“This underscores, as soon as once more, the pressing want for systematic investigations of those experiences. Regardless of the European Fee’s engagement with Croatian authorities in current months, we now have seen nearly no progress, neither on investigations of the particular experiences, nor on the event of unbiased border monitoring mechanisms to forestall violence on the EU’s exterior borders.

“It truly is time to show rhetoric into actuality – and be sure that really unbiased border monitoring is put in place to forestall these abuses, and be sure that credible and clear investigations can successfully maintain perpetrators of violence and abuse to account.

“Whether or not they contain violence or not, pushbacks represent a violation of worldwide and EU regulation, and it’s long-overdue for EU member states to respect the rule of regulation in border administration.”

Croatia has repeatedly denied allegations that it makes use of violence to push again migrants and asylum seekers to Bosnia.

On January 11, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights printed observations to the European Court docket of Human Rights, noting that each one info factors to a longtime follow of collective returns, widespread ill-treatment of migrants by Croatian regulation enforcement officers and an absence of immediate and unbiased investigations into such therapy, the report mentioned.