Croatian police regularly and often violently push back refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants to Bosnia and Herzegovina without assessing their asylum requests or protection needs, Human Rights Watch says in a report released on Wednesday.

The 94-page report, “‘Like We Were Just Animals’: Pushbacks of People Seeking Protection from Croatia to Bosnia and Herzegovina,” finds that Croatian authorities engage in pushbacks, including of unaccompanied children and families with young children.

The practice is ongoing despite official denials, purported monitoring efforts, and repeated – and unfulfilled – commitments to respect the right to seek asylum and other human rights norms. Border police frequently steal or destroy phones, money, identity documents, and other personal property, and often subject children and adults to humiliating and degrading treatment, sometimes in ways that are explicitly racist.

“Pushbacks have long been standard operating procedure for Croatia’s border police, and the Croatian government has bamboozled European Union institutions through deflection and empty promises,” said Michael Garcia Bochenek, senior children’s rights counsel at Human Rights Watch and the author of the report. “These abhorrent abuses – and the official duplicity that facilitates them – should end.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 100 people, including more than 20 unaccompanied children and two dozen parents travelling with young children, who described often-brutal pushbacks, some as recently as April 2023. Some people said Croatian police had pushed them back dozens of times, routinely ignoring their asylum requests.

Croatian authorities have nearly always disclaimed responsibility for pushbacks, and the Croatian Ministry of the Interior did not respond to Human Rights Watch’s requests for a meeting or for comment on its findings, Human Rights Watch says.

Between January 2020 and December 2022, the Danish Refugee Council recorded nearly 30,000 pushbacks. Approximately 13 percent of pushbacks recorded in 2022 were of children, alone or with families. Afghanistan is the most common country of origin.

In a typical pushback, Croatian police do not transfer people to authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina at regular border posts. Instead, Croatian police transport people to points elsewhere along the border and order them across. People described having to wade across rivers or streams, scramble over rocks, or make their way through dense forest, often at night and without any idea of how to reach the nearest town, Human Rights Watch says.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s asylum system is ineffective, meaning that it is not an option for most people seeking international protection. Only five people received refugee recognition in 2021, up from one in 2020 and three in 2019, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

In the second half of 2022, as the EU was in the final stages of considering Croatia’s application to join the Schengen Area, Croatian police increasingly employed an alternative tactic of issuing summary expulsion orders, which also did not consider protection needs or offer due process protections. By late March 2023, Croatian police appeared to have abandoned this practice, the HRW says.

In March and April, Croatian police also transferred several hundred people to Bosnia and Herzegovina under a “readmission agreement” and suggested that such readmissions would continue. Readmission is a formal procedure carried out at regular border posts, but readmissions to Bosnia and Herzegovina from Croatia do not consider protection needs and do not afford critical due process protections, including the right to appeal.

These readmissions are effectively mass summary expulsions, the HRW says.

Austria, Italy, and Slovenia have also used their readmission agreements with each other and with Croatia in much the same way, meaning that even if people reach Slovenia or another EU country, they may find themselves returned, in turn, to each country they passed through on their journeys through Europe.

The European Union has contributed substantial funds to Croatian border management without securing meaningful guarantees that Croatia’s practices adhere to international human rights norms and comply with EU law. An EU-funded border monitoring mechanism established in 2021 has lacked independence, the HRW says.

Croatia’s pushback practices violate the international prohibitions of torture and other ill-treatment, collective expulsion, and return to risk of harm, known as refoulement. Pushbacks of children violate child rights norms, the HRW says.

“Pushbacks should not be business as usual,” Bochenek said. “EU institutions need to act decisively to hold Croatia to account for these regular violations of EU law and international norms.”