Migrants ‘beaten back across border by Eu-funded secret police’
‘We make no apology for our continued focus on breaking up these human trafficking operations’
THE European Commission has called for an investigation into the “misuse” of EU funds after masked border guards were filmed brutally beating migrants on the bloc’s borders.
Ylva Johansson, the EU’S home affairs commissioner, said she was “extremely concerned” by reports of violent pushbacks of asylum seekers, with secretly recorded video showing Croatian police, wearing black balaclavas, attacking migrants with batons.
The officers wore no police badges, name tags or other identifying insignia on their uniforms.
One video clip showed Afghan and Pakistani asylum seekers lifting up their shirts to reveal welts and bruises, said to have been incurred during beatings by Croatian police.
It was claimed that violence was used to push asylum seekers back over the border from Croatia to Bosnia Hercegovina, from where they had arrived.
Pushbacks that contravene the international right to claim asylum have allegedly taken place on the borders of Croatia, Greece and Romania, according to a months-long investigation by the German newspaper Der Spiegel and other European publications.
Reporters from seven countries involved in the filming said they had uncovered a “system” run by police “special units” who hid their identity.
Ms Johansson, who was last night due to meet with Croatia’s interior minister Davor Bozinovic as well as Greece’s migration minister Notis Mitarachi, said she was worried about “evidence of misuse of EU funds” given to members to protect their borders. “This needs to be investigated,” she said.
The actions in Croatia were allegedly part of an operation called Koridor which is partly financed by the EU.
Hidden cameras captured Romanian police pushing migrants and refugees back into neighbouring Serbia.
Asylum seekers recounted “serious assaults” during the pushbacks, Der Spiegel reported.
In Greece, around 600 video clips showing alleged pushbacks at sea were analysed, several of them involving masked men who were reported to be members of elite units of the Hellenic Coast Guard. The investigation claimed that “orders come from the very top”.
Greece denied allegations that it was carrying out illegal pushbacks on its borders. “We strongly deny these allegations. Greek borders are EU borders and we operate within international and European law to protect them,” said Mr Mitarachi.
Criminal gangs were exploiting asy- lum seekers trying to enter Europe, he claimed, adding: “We make no apology for our continued focus on breaking up these human trafficking operations, and protecting Europe’s border.”
Athens said at the weekend that it would not allow a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis to unfold on its borders. There are concerns that the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan could provoke a similar exodus.
“We will not accept uncontrolled migratory flows similar to the ones we saw in 2015,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister, said. Greek authorities recently completed the building of a 25-mile fence on the Turkish border.
Mr Bozinovic said that police had already set up a “special investigative team” to look into the allegations.
Zagreb has held similar investigations but always claimed that no abuses by police were detected.
Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have recently allowed their border guards to perform pushbacks after an increase in crossings from neighbouring Belarus of irregular migrants from Iraq, Afghanistan, Cameroon and Congo.
Amnesty International labelled it “alarming” that Brussels “continues to close its eyes to flagrant violations of EU law and even continues to finance police and border operations in some of these countries”.
A spokesman for Ms Johansson confirmed that national authorities in Croatia and Greece would be the ones to carry out the investigations. But they cast doubt over whether the inquiry would actually take place, saying Ms Johansson did not “demand” it.