The head of the Croatian border administration, Zoran Niceno, said on Wednesday that the Police Directorate had formed a task force that would go in the field after the release of videos showing masked persons hitting migrants and pushing them back from Croatia to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Earlier in the day, RTL television showed videos of men wearing ski masks pushing back migrants from Croatia across a backwater of the Korana river, hitting them with batons such as those used by riot police. Some of the men also wore vests like those of riot police.

EU governments deny the existence of a violent campaign by masked men to turn away asylum seekers at EU borders. A months-long investigation by @LHReports & leading media unmasks these groups, reveals who commands & finances them pic.twitter.com/nGNFs5Epsi

— Lighthouse Reports (@LHreports) October 6, 2021

RTL said the footage was from June and that it was taken during an eight-month journalistic investigation in which an RTL crew took part with colleagues from Lighthouse Reports, an investigative journalistic network based in the Netherlands, the Swiss SRF Rundschau, the German ARD, ARD Monitor, the French Liberation, the Dutch Pointer, the Croatian Novosti, and the German Der Spiegel.

Niceno told RTL the Police Directorate saw part of the video for the first time earlier in the day and the whole report later on TV.

“We saw that the material is impressive and the police director decided to form a task force that will go to that supposed terrain tomorrow. Given that these are journalists’ claims, today we called the Cetingrad police commissioner and we haven't managed to determine the location of the event,” Niceno said.

He said blows or beatings were not part of regular police procedure and that there was no command or order to push back migrants and beat them. “In order to establish all the facts, everything has to be checked.”

Niceno said Croatia was one of the most successful countries in catching migrant smugglers and that the job of the police was to protect the Croatian border. However, he added, “it's absolutely impossible that someone in the police would order or support such hitting.”

Investigation by a number of European media

The video and story about violence against migrants were released in a number of countries, including testimonies by migrants, medical staff, investigators and analysts.

Investigative journalists Klaas van Dijken and Lamia Sabic recorded the violence near Sturlic on the Bosnian side of the border.

About 20 metres from us, we saw through the bushes four persons with masks hit people and force them into a river up to their chests. By force into the Korana and back to Bosnia, van Dijken said.

By looking at the footage, he said, they noticed that the men wore vests like those of the Croatian riot police.

In Croatia, we filmed 1st ever high-res footage of a violent pushback at the border with Bosnia Herzegovina. Forensic examination of the video reveals that the men had equipment & uniforms consistent with a branch of the Croatian police called Intervention Police pic.twitter.com/48tWIyrtY6

— Lighthouse Reports (@LHreports) October 6, 2021

Analysts also established that the gun one masked man had on his belt was made by the Croatian company HS Produkt, which supplies the Croatian police. They also noticed the baton used by Croatian police.

Also broadcast was drone footage showing persons brought to the border in a van and directed to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The head of Lighthouse Reports coordinated a journalistic investigation on the Romanian and Greek borders as well. Lots of information leads to the conclusion that similar practice is being implemented on other European borders, RTL said.