Amnesty International: Abuse of Migrants on the Balkan Route

(Patria) - European governments are complicit in systematic, illegal and often violent pushbacks and collective expulsions of thousands of asylum seekers to miserable and unsafe refugee camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to an Amnesty International report published on Wednesday, NAP reports.

"Pushed to the Edge: Violence and Abuse of Refugees and Migrants along the Balkan Route" is the title of the report, which details how, by prioritising border security over compliance with international law, European governments not only turn a blind eye to malicious attacks by the Croatian police, but also finance their activities. In this way, they fuel a growing humanitarian crisis on the edge of the European Union.

RSE writes that the report's findings are based on research during which Amnesty International interviewed 94 refugees, migrants and asylum seekers, including 81 men and 13 women staying in camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina. All 94 respondents who were in camps in Bihać and Velika Kladuša had been returned, at least once, from Croatia and Slovenia back to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The report also includes representatives of non-governmental organisations, activists and volunteers, as well as official authorities from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia, and representatives of international organisations.

More on this report is available at Radio Free Europe.