CROATIAN police officers are regularly pushing people back across its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina without assessing their asylum requests, Human Rights Watch said today.

In a 94-page report released today, Human Rights Watch accused the Croatian authorities of continuing to illegally force people — including unaccompanied children and families with young children — over the border despite official denials and repeated commitments to respect human rights laws.

The report says the border police have frequently stolen or destroyed people’s phones, money, identity documents, and other personal property, and often subject others (including children) to humiliating and degrading treatment.

“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.”