Videos 'Prove' Croatia Forcibly Expelling Migrants, Watchdog Says

Border Violence Monitoring, BVM, a watchdog organization in Croatia, on Sunday published video material of police expelling migrants and refugees across the Croatia-Bosnia border.

It said it received an anonymous message on 20 November, containing the video footage from the area.

According to BVM, the videos, recorded with hidden cameras in a forest near Lohovo, in Bosnia, were filmed between September 29 and October 10 and show 54 illegal group expulsions of refugees, so-called "pushbacks", from Croatia to Bosnia.

"At least 350 refugees, including small children, minors and women, can clearly be seen on the video recordings as victims of these pushbacks, which take place several times a day and at night. Should they occur just as frequently as during the filmed period, the number of push-backs at this border crossing alone would exceed 150 per month," BVM said.

"For security reasons, the informants themselves prefer to remain anonymous; yet for the extensiveness and level of detail of the material in concordance with other reports, we consider it authentic,"  BVM's press release added.

BVM is publishing new footage confirming the long existing suspicion of #HumanRightsViolations against #Refugees at external #EU #border between #Bosnia and #Croatia@DavorBozinovic @EU_Commission
See our statement here: https://t.co/z5NXvVeTDM …
#PushbacksAreIllegal pic.twitter.com/LQa4VdfvrN

— Border Violence Monitoring (@Border_Violence) December 16, 2018

On Tuesday, the international watchdog Human Rights Watch accused Croatian police of abusing, beating and extorting money from migrants and refugees while not allowing them to seek asylum in the country.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 people, including...