The Afghan fathers braving beatings to reach family in Croatia

In northwest Bosnia, stranded Afghan fathers are desperate to reunite with their families over the border in Croatia – and risk their own safety in order to do so.

Nearly every day for the past three months, Ahmed, a 27-year-old father from Afghanistan, has risen at 6am in Velika Kladuša, a small Bosnian border town. After a walk of 30 minutes, Ahmed reaches the border and crosses into the European Union through the forest. By 7 or 8am, he is standing on a main road a few kilometres inside Croatia, waiting to be found by the police. Before lunchtime, he has been caught, beaten, and pushed back into Bosnia. “All I want is to see my son,” he says. Ahmed, who did not wish to give his surname for fear of reprisals, estimates he has repeated this Sisyphean routine more than 60 times, varying his route yet sometimes encountering the same police officers, and never achieving his goal. Why does he do this? Because in a Zagreb refugee camp, just 90km (56miles) away as the crow flies but a world away to Ahmed, are his wife and infant son.