This blog post spotlights Bosnia's Lukavica Detention Center, the country's sole immigration facility, where 4,631 people, including 115 children, were held from 2018-2024 amid EU-backed expansions and lax oversight. It contrasts official claims of safeguards with detainee testimonies of degrading conditions, arbitrary detention, and rights violations like denied medical care and Ombudsman access blocks.
Read MoreThis blog post spotlights Bosnia's Lukavica Detention Center, the country's sole immigration facility, where 4,631 people, including 115 children, were held from 2018-2024 amid EU-backed expansions and lax oversight. It contrasts official claims of safeguards with detainee testimonies of degrading conditions, arbitrary detention, and rights violations like denied medical care and Ombudsman access blocks.
Read MoreThis blog post spotlights Bosnia's Lukavica Detention Center, the country's sole immigration facility, where 4,631 people, including 115 children, were held from 2018-2024 amid EU-backed expansions and lax oversight. It contrasts official claims of safeguards with detainee testimonies of degrading conditions, arbitrary detention, and rights violations like denied medical care and Ombudsman access blocks.
Read MoreA joint report with Global Detention Project highlights systemic concerns about Serbia’s immigration detention, including arbitrary detention, poor conditions, limited access to justice, and the detention of vulnerable groups. Although Serbia operates official detention centres, migrants and asylum seekers are also held in informal, de facto detention without legal safeguards, often for prolonged periods despite no realistic prospect of removal. These issues are compounded by laws that criminalise irregular entry and allow lengthy detention, practices criticised as arbitrary and disproportionate under international standards
Read MoreThis blog post spotlights Bosnia's Lukavica Detention Center, the country's sole immigration facility, where 4,631 people, including 115 children, were held from 2018-2024 amid EU-backed expansions and lack oversight. It contrasts official claims of safeguards with detainee testimonies of degrading conditions, arbitrary detention, and rights violations like denied medical care and Ombudsman access blocks.
Read MoreThis blog post spotlights Bosnia's Lukavica Detention Center, the country's sole immigration facility, where 4,631 people, including 115 children, were held from 2018-2024 amid EU-backed expansions and lax oversight. It contrasts official claims of safeguards with detainee testimonies of degrading conditions, arbitrary detention, and rights violations like denied medical care and Ombudsman access blocks.
Read MoreA joint report with Collective Aid highlights systemic concerns about Serbia’s immigration detention, including arbitrary detention, poor conditions, limited access to justice, and the detention of vulnerable groups. Although Serbia operates official detention centres, migrants and asylum seekers are also held in informal, de facto detention without legal safeguards, often for prolonged periods despite no realistic prospect of removal. These issues are compounded by laws that criminalise irregular entry and allow lengthy detention, practices criticised as arbitrary and disproportionate under international standards.
Read MoreThis four‑part blog series presents key findings from the 2024–2025 Aegean Sea Border Incidents dataset, a rigorously cross‑verified, incident‑level analysis of border violence patterns. Drawing on Collective Aid’s Evidence‑Based Action for Human Rights at Borders methodology, it first shows how Turkish apprehensions, “rescues,” and Greek pushbacks systematically prevent people from ever accessing asylum in Greece. The second part examines violent Hellenic Coast Guard practices such as pushbacks, high‑speed boat chases, and gunfire incidents, while the third traces how these tactics contribute to persistent deaths and disappearances despite fewer crossings. The final article explores how both Greek and Turkish authorities criminalise people on the move and alleged “facilitators,” turning survivors of border violence into suspects in a system that obscures state responsibility
Read MoreThis four‑part blog series presents key findings from the 2024–2025 Aegean Sea Border Incidents dataset, a rigorously cross‑verified, incident‑level analysis of border violence patterns. Drawing on Collective Aid’s Evidence‑Based Action for Human Rights at Borders methodology, it first shows how Turkish apprehensions, “rescues,” and Greek pushbacks systematically prevent people from ever accessing asylum in Greece. The second part examines violent Hellenic Coast Guard practices such as pushbacks, high‑speed boat chases, and gunfire incidents, while the third traces how these tactics contribute to persistent deaths and disappearances despite fewer crossings. The final article explores how both Greek and Turkish authorities criminalise people on the move and alleged “facilitators,” turning survivors of border violence into suspects in a system that obscures state responsibility
Read MoreThis four‑part blog series presents key findings from the 2024–2025 Aegean Sea Border Incidents dataset, a rigorously cross‑verified, incident‑level analysis of border violence patterns. Drawing on Collective Aid’s Evidence‑Based Action for Human Rights at Borders methodology, it first shows how Turkish apprehensions, “rescues,” and Greek pushbacks systematically prevent people from ever accessing asylum in Greece. The second part examines violent Hellenic Coast Guard practices such as pushbacks, high‑speed boat chases, and gunfire incidents, while the third traces how these tactics contribute to persistent deaths and disappearances despite fewer crossings. The final article explores how both Greek and Turkish authorities criminalise people on the move and alleged “facilitators,” turning survivors of border violence into suspects in a system that obscures state responsibility
Read MoreThis four‑part blog series presents key findings from the 2024–2025 Aegean Sea Border Incidents dataset, a rigorously cross‑verified, incident‑level analysis of border violence patterns. Drawing on Collective Aid’s Evidence‑Based Action for Human Rights at Borders methodology, it first shows how Turkish apprehensions, “rescues,” and Greek pushbacks systematically prevent people from ever accessing asylum in Greece. The second part examines violent Hellenic Coast Guard practices such as pushbacks, high‑speed boat chases, and gunfire incidents, while the third traces how these tactics contribute to persistent deaths and disappearances despite fewer crossings. The final article explores how both Greek and Turkish authorities criminalise people on the move and alleged “facilitators,” turning survivors of border violence into suspects in a system that obscures state responsibility
Read MoreThis 2026 assessment in Bosnia examines the material, service, and advocacy needs of displaced individuals in Sarajevo’s TRCs. It highlights significant gaps in basic necessities, healthcare, legal support, and access to information, while documenting widespread experiences of abuse, violence, and systemic mistreatment across borders and camps. The findings provide actionable insights for improving services, strengthening protection, and guiding advocacy efforts to uphold the rights and wellbeing of people on the move.
Read MoreThe Collective Aid International webinar marked the conclusion of its Evidence-Based Action for Human Rights at Borders project, presenting a transferable methodological toolkit for systematically documenting and verifying border violence in the Aegean Sea using multi-source data from 2024–2025. The pilot dataset recorded over 3,600 incidents affecting 82,239 people — including widespread pushbacks, 263 deaths and disappearances, and 100 shipwrecks — underscoring patterns of violent enforcement and the urgent need for rigorous, harmonized monitoring frameworks across border contexts.
Read MoreThe position paper shows how EU return policies and plans for “return hubs” in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are already producing arbitrary, prolonged detention, poor conditions and blocked access to asylum and legal safeguards for people on the move. It calls on the EU, its member states and both governments to halt return hubs, end detention as a default migration tool and invest in rights‑based alternatives such as fair asylum procedures and safe pathways, and these findings are discussed in more detail in our newly published webinar recording.
Read MoreOn the night of 3 February 2026, a boat carrying people on the move capsized off Chios after a collision with a Hellenic Coast Guard vessel, leaving at least 15 dead and many others — including children and pregnant women — with injuries more typical of a high‑speed traffic crash than a simple shipwreck. Conflicting accounts from survivors, medical staff and officials, together with missing or inactive onboard recordings and the rapid criminalisation of a Moroccan survivor as the alleged “smuggler,” have turned this tragedy into a test case for transparency, accountability and the wider deterrence‑based border regime in the Aegean.
Read MoreIn January 2026, as Iran entered one of the deadliest government crackdowns in its modern history,. In January, we have also met Iranian men during distributions in Bosnia whom have shared their firsthand experiences of repression, violence, and loss under the Islamic Republic. These conversations took place amid a near-total internet blackout, as families were cut off from one another and reports of mass killings emerged. By sharing these stories in their own words, we aim to bear witness and stand in solidarity with the people of Iran and others facing state oppression.
Read MoreIn this article, we examine Britain’s underreported proposal to deport failed asylum seekers to North Macedonia. We situate the plan within the dynamics of the Balkan migration route and assess its feasibility in light of North Macedonia’s role as a short-term transit country, its extremely low rate of asylum applications, and documented practices of pushbacks and abuse. The article outlines the legal, logistical, and humanitarian flaws of the proposal, questions its deterrent effect, and considers the risk that such a scheme would further endanger people on the move while strengthening smuggling networks and misusing public funds.
Read MoreAs winter returns to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the wider region, Collective Aid’s field team in Sarajevo is deeply alarmed by the rising number of deaths and disappearances of people on the move along the Balkan route. Freezing temperatures, treacherous river crossings, and the absence of coordinated rescue efforts continue to claim lives, outcomes driven not by chance, but by political decisions that prioritise deterrence over protection. This piece documents recent fatal crossings, unreported deaths, and the ongoing suffering of families left without answers, highlighting how silence, impunity, and exclusionary border policies turn rivers into borders of death.
Read MoreMen on the move are among the most criminalised, excluded, and misunderstood people within migration systems today. Too often portrayed as threats rather than individuals seeking safety, they are routinely left out of protection schemes, denied empathy, and erased from humanitarian responses. This piece challenges harmful and gendered narratives, exposes how structural exclusion is built into migration policy and practice, and asks a critical question: why does protection so often stop at gender, and what are the consequences when it does?
Read MoreThis comparative analysis examines systematic violence at the Croatia-Bosnia and Hungary-Serbia borders, revealing how both frontlines, despite divergent political narratives, operate as zones of legal exception where pushbacks, surveillance technology, and detention serve as deliberate migration management tools. Drawing on firsthand experience and policy analysis, it exposes the institutionalized brutality underlying Europe's border regime.
Read More