Investigation exposes 'cage-like' migrant detention sites in Eastern Europe

A consortium of investigative journalists has exposed deplorable conditions at so-called "black sites" in Eastern Europe where migrants are reportedly being detained to prevent them from seeking asylum.

A family behind the fence of a reception centre for migrants near Hungary's border with Slovakia. © AFP - ATTILA KISBENEDEK

The non-profit organisation Lighthouse Reports says it has documented a campaign of illegal pushbacks at Europe’s borders, specifically in Bulgaria, Hungary and Croatia.

Hundreds of witnesses told it about the existence of “black sites”: clandestine detention centres where refugees and migrants are held before being forced back, often in desperate conditions.

Lighthouse Reports said the system operates in plain sight of officers from the EU border agency Frontex, and denounced it as a violation of international law.

This week we released footage of Bulgarian border forces shooting a Syrian refugee. They denied it. The EU’s called for an investigation

This wasn’t an isolated incident. Today we place it in a wider system at EU borders reliant on black sites, cages & torture

THREAD pic.twitter.com/d9fht29hG3

— Lighthouse Reports (@LHreports) December 8, 2022

Cruel methods

Over the last 11 months, Lighthouse Reports gathered footage and collected testimonies from people who have been held in such places.

In Bulgaria, the journalists said they found that asylum seekers who cross from Turkey are "routinely locked in a small, cage-like structure" next to a border police station in Sredets, a town around 40 kilometres from the Turkish border.

They are reportedly held there for anything from several hours to up to three days.

"The structure resembles a disused dog kennel," the report said. Witnesses who had been held in the cage said they were denied food or water.

The journalists also heard evidence from Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has gathered numerous reports of people being detained in shipping containers in Hungary. 

These people were then reportedly loaded into prison buses and pushed back across the border into Serbia.

In Croatia, asylum seekers were filmed crammed into the back of police vans in strong heat. They were eventually pushed back to Bosnia, the investigation reported. 

.@LHreports uncovers how the brutal treatment of asylum seekers by European border guards continues apace. Crammed into EU-funded cages, shipping containers and police vans before being violently expelled from the territory. https://t.co/KQb6DNsTW1

— Andrew Connelly (@connellyandrew) December 8, 2022

The investigation compared the treatment, which it said left migrants traumatised, to torture. 

“It’s being done to punish, deter and intimidate and therefore it meets the widely recognised UN definition of torture,” said Liz Bates, lead doctor at Freedom from Torture.

EU funding 

Bulgaria, Hungary and Croatia have each received millions of euros from the EU in recent years, according to Lighthouse Reports, which links EU funding directly to detentions and pushbacks.

Bulgarian border forces used EU funds to renovate the Sredets police station, where the cage-like shed is located, it reports.

Two Hungarian border police prison buses, used to facilitate pushbacks, were acquired with funding from the EU, and the roads on which Croatian vans drive refugees to the border were also financed by European taxpayers.

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The investigation was published as the EU voted on accepting Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania into the Schengen Area.

While Croatia was approved to join the free-travel zone, the other two countries were denied. 

Last month, the European Commission said that all three countries were "ready to fully participate" in Schengen.

It praised their border management, which it said respected fundamental rights including access to international protection.