On Schengen and its discontents - Steffen Lüdke and Nicole Vögele in Der Spiegel:

'For six days, it seemed like Sajad’s dream of a life in Europe might come true. The Afghan teenager departed Bosnian soil, crossed the border to Croatia and kept walking through hail and pouring rain. He planned to apply for asylum in Zagreb, a safe distance from the border, he thought.

Sajad, who is 16, has a childlike face and wears glasses, doesn’t want his last name printed. He says he’d like to become a hairstylist in Europe. He fled Afghanistan together with his family three years ago. The family crossed Turkey, lived in the Moria refugee camp in Greece for one year, and then came to Bosnia via Thessaloniki. Sajad’s uncle was also part of the group heading to Zagreb, an older man with a heart defect who limped behind the group using a crutch. For a long time, Sajad says, things were going well.

But now, six days later, Sajad and his family are back on the Bosnian side of the border, their clothes soaked. Sajad says the Croatian police caught them shortly before Zagreb. He says they were not allowed to apply for asylum and that not even the sight of the small children had changed the officials’ minds. His sister breaks into tears as he describes it, his mother crouches on the ground. Sajad says the officials had yelled "go back to Bosnia” and driven them back to the border.

What happened after that has been recorded in videos. They show, among others, Sajad and his family. Police officers, evidently Croatian border officials, lead the Afghans out of the Croatian forest and over the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina. They command the asylum-seekers to keep moving until they are far enough away from European soil.’

(…)

‘The actions, known as "pushbacks," violate Croatian asylum law, European law and the Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. They also make a mockery of the cornerstone of the right to asylum: Instead of being afforded a personal hearing and an individual asylum process, people seeking protection are simply being collectively pushed back.’

(…)

‘The videos recorded in the course of their reporting debunk the Croatian government’s denials that pushbacks are taking place. They show that Croatia is systematically pushing people back at the border to Bosnia. The reporters filmed a series of six pushbacks at just one location along a border that is 1,000 kilometers (630 miles) long.’

(…)

‘"We're like animals to them,” says Anwar, a young Afghan who once fled from the Taliban and would prefer not to state his real name. He is holding his seven-year-old nephew in his arms. The boy has a visible scar on his head. Anwar says that his nephew has problems with his eyes, with his head and legs. His family wants to find a good doctor for him in Germany, but so far they have always failed to make it past the Croatian border.’

(…)

‘In response to a request for comment from DER SPIEGEL, the Croatian Interior Ministry stated that the actions are legal refusals of entry directly at the border. It claims that in these cases, it had been unnecessary to bring the people to a police station to determine the "needs of the migrants” and that Croatia is abiding by national and international rules when it comes to border protection. The ministry stated that, in the past five months alone, 339 people in the region have applied for international asylum protection.
But the Interior Ministry is ignoring the fact that the asylum-seekers say they had already made it far into Croatian territory. In such cases, EU law prohibits deportation over the border and requires that the migrants be allowed to submit an application for asylum and for the proper asylum procedures to be completed. On top of that comes the fact that those who were pushed back included partly pregnant women, babies or frail people who are all in special need of protection.
In recent years, the EU has provided over 160 million euros ($191 million) in financing to secure Croatia's external border. Germany has provided the Croatian border police with thermal imaging cameras and minibuses. Croatia is soon expected to be allowed to join the Schengen area, whose internal borders are not controlled. The Croatian government is therefore already positioning itself as Europe's gatekeeper.’

(…)

‘Five days after the pushback, he is sitting with his family in the ruins of a half-built house, drinking tea he boiled on the fire in an old tin can. Sajad’s uncle is leaning against a wall, his crutch set to the side. The adults have set down blankets, the children are running around. Sajad says he long ago stopped counting how often he has tried getting across the border into the EU. Soon, it will have been 10 months since he arrived in Bosnia. Tomorrow, he wants to try again.’

Read the article here.

Europe’s gate keeper, Croatia, is treating refugees like animals.

Pushbacks, at the border between Greece and Turkey, or at the border between Croatia and Bosnia, appear to be the unofficial policy of the EU to keep refugees out.

The lukewarm response from EU officials to the illegal Croatian and Greek pushbacks is telling. Less asylum seekers is better, the Croats can make their hands dirty to keep the rest of Schengen ‘clean’.