Video on police brutality - Romanian border

On the 14th of February, at around 1 AM, Klikaktiv received the video that we are sharing with you. The group of boys from Syria managed to enter the territory of Romania, but soon after they were stopped by the Romanian police and pushed back to the Serbian territory. Before they were pushed back, the Romanian police officer took away two of their phones and some money they found on them. Then the police officers cut off their shoelaces which made their sneakers unusable. Boys had two options, one - to walk back barefoot (although the outside temperature was –7 degrees) and the other one - to drag their feet on the ground so that their sneakers would stay on their feet without the shoelaces to hold them on. This is only one of the means that EU police is using to take away people’s dignity and to humiliate them, hoping it will discourage them from trying to cross the border again.

However, forced pushbacks to the Serbian territory will not discourage people in their intent to cross the EU borders, especially having in mind the conditions in which they are living in Serbia. In this specific case, Klikaktiv has been in touch with this group of boys since late January. We met them during our visit to Majdan, a small village on the border triangle of Serbia, Hungary, and Romania. They were staying in the abandoned milk factory on the outskirts of the village, despite the fact that it was heavy winter and snow. They told us that they are trying to cross the border on a daily basis but every time the Romanian police would return them to Serbia, usually with beatings. They wrote to us on 29th January and told us that Serbian police has picked them up in Majdan and is taking them to the camp in Presevo at the Macedonian border. They sent us the video from the bus which was overcrowded with refugees – not only that all seats were taken but refugees were also sitting on the floor of the bus between the seats. Protective measures and a limited number of people in closed spaces, due to the Covid19 pandemic, apparently don’t apply to people on the move. In Presevo, they didn’t actually reside in the camp, but instead they were placed in a giant tent in front of the camp, where dozens of people are sleeping without any privacy, heating, and basic hygiene conditions. After they have left the Presevo they returned to Majdan where two boys from the group were stabbed while they were robbed. Luckily the injuries were not too severe, but they had to take care of the wounds on their own since they are not entitled to health care in Serbia. Four days after they were injured and robbed in Serbia they tried to cross the border again and enter Romania, which is when this video was made.