“I have been stopped and pushed back five times in Croatia and once in Slovenia. I have been beaten up during the pushbacks several times. Other people got their limbs broken. We don’t receive any medical help here in the camp, unfortunately. We just get Panadol [acetaminophen] pills.”
BIHAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina — As the sun sets over the ruins of the former Krajina Metal factory, in the northwest part of this Balkan country, Morteza Mohammadi's face emerges from a pile of blankets and sleeping bags.
Slowly stretching and rubbing his hands together to keep warm, Mohammadi, 21, sits up and grabs his bag. A few feet away, his companions sit in silence around an improvised fire. The temperature will shortly plunge a few degrees below freezing on a recent winter night.
Mohammadi picks up his phone and plays a traditional song from Afghanistan's Hazarajat region. The notes of a dambura, a regional lute, waft through the vast, empty space.
He is sewing his backpack in preparation for clandestine border crossings. His plan is to cross into the European Union member states Croatia, Slovenia and eventually Italy — a dangerous journey migrants and refugees here refer to as "the game."