Croatian Police Accused Again of Brutality to Migrants

No Name Kitchen, NNK, an NGO that helps migrants and refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Wednesday on social networks accused Croatian police of beating a migrant and documented the claim with a photograph of his injured back.

It said its volunteers were dining on Tuesday in the town of Velika Kladusa when the man arrived and asked them to check his injuries.

"He was beaten with a plastic baton few times, and also kicked with boots on his face. We did not want to publish pictures of his face, as he might have problems afterwards," NNK told BIRN.

Tuesday night, while having dinner between the volunteers working in Velika Kladuša, a man comes and asks us if we could check him, he just came back from "the game" and the Croatian police beat him. This is how his back looked like ten minutes after coming back from the border. pic.twitter.com/Zpwp3FEofc

— NoNameKitchen (@NoNameKitchen1) August 1, 2018

He had apparently returned from trying to reach European Union when he said the Croatian police beat him and his friends.

The Croatian police did not respond to BIRN's request for a comment about this claim.

A rising number of refugees and migrants heading through Bosnia want to enter the EU via Croatia and then seek asylum in Western Europe.

One of the transit hot spots is the Bosnian border with Croatia, around the small towns of Bihac and Velika Kladusa, in northwest Bosnia. 

The numbers heading north from Greece via Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia have doubled since last year, with Bosnia now struggling to accommodate and feed around 5,000 people.

None of those people want to stay in Bosnia. Most attempt to cross the border into Croatia, but the obstacles are formidable, from forests and...