Croatia's interior ministry on October 10, 2024 rejected allegations that border police burned migrants' belongings and carried out illegal pushbacks, responding to a report by the NGO No Name Kitchen (NNK) that documented eight secret 'burn piles' along the country's borders.

NNK's report, entitled 'Burned Borders', draws on an investigation conducted between October 2023 and August 2024. It presents evidence of sites where Croatian border police allegedly destroyed the personal property of migrants attempting to cross into the European Union and seek asylum.

The report accuses Croatian authorities of "a systematic and brutal modus operandi" against migrants, including stripping them of their possessions and burning them in front of them.

What did investigators find at the burn sites?

NNK says its teams located eight 'burn piles' in Croatia where personal items were allegedly destroyed. The findings include:

• hundreds of melted mobile phones
• remnants of clothing, backpacks and shoes
• passports and identity documents
• folders that typically hold official documents used to apply for asylum

One documented site sits outside an abandoned bunker of the Željava Air Base, under the Plješevica mountains on the border with Bosnia.

Esme, Border Violence Reference at NNK, told InfoMigrants: "After so much physical, psychological, and administrative violence at the hands of the European border regime, forcing people to watch their belongings burnt in front of them must be understood as a part of a broader attempt to strip people of their autonomy, dehumanise them, and deprive them of remaining connections to culture and identity."

Who is affected and what law applies?

The allegations concern people crossing the Balkan route toward the EU. Human rights organizations have previously documented many instances of violence, robbery and pushbacks of migrants in Croatia.

These groups accuse Croatian authorities of multiple violations of international law, which requires that asylum seekers have the opportunity to apply for asylum once they are within a country's borders. The destruction of passports and asylum folders, if confirmed, would complicate any subsequent asylum procedure, because applicants must normally present or account for identity documents.

How did Croatia's government respond?

After The Guardian reported the claims on Thursday, October 10, Croatia's interior ministry released a statement saying it had no knowledge of the alleged events and that the events had not been confirmed.

The statement makes several points:

• Croatian police have consistently implemented measures to protect the EU's external borders.

• The ministry rejects the allegation that Croatian police have "ever" conducted illegal pushbacks.

• Smuggler groups, which the ministry says are mostly operated by Afghan migrants, "often beat and steal things from migrants," citing recent gunfights between smugglers in the Bosnian border area.

• The ministry describes several cases of what it calls false testimonies by migrants.

On the specific accusation of burning belongings, the ministry states that migrants themselves "leave and reject personal belongings and things they carry with them, and sometimes destroy them to make them hard to identify, because as asylum seekers they want to avoid returning from other EU Member States to Croatia."

InfoMigrants says it independently sought comment from Croatian authorities on October 10 but received no reply.

What happens next?

The report and the ministry's rebuttal leave the allegations formally unconfirmed. The 'Burned Borders' report is publicly available through NNK, and the interior ministry's full statement is published on its official website in Croatian.

No independent judicial or EU-level inquiry into the eight identified sites has been announced in connection with the report. Travelers and asylum seekers with concerns about treatment at the Croatian border should consult official EU and Croatian government channels, as well as qualified legal advisors, for guidance on their individual circumstances.