The European Commission has ordered an investigation into the “misuse” of EU funds after it emerged that masked men from member state such as Greece and Croatia have engaged in illegal pushbacks of refugees and migrants on the bloc’s borders.

Ylva Johansson, the EU’s home affairs commissioner, said she was "extremely concerned" by reports of covert and sometimes violent pushbacks of asylum seekers, with secretly-recorded video showing Croatian police, wearing black balaclavas, beating migrants with batons.

The officers wore no police badges, name tags or other identifying insignia on their uniforms.

She also voiced concern about “evidence of misuse of EU funds” amid claims that EU-funded personnel and equipment were used in the violence towards asylum seekers.

“Some of these reports are shocking,” she said, calling for a thorough investigation of the issue.

Pushbacks that allegedly contravene the international right to claim asylum have taken place on the borders of Croatia, Greece and Romania, according to a months-long investigation by the German newspaper Der Spiegel and other European publications.

Read the full story here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/07/eu-funding-brigades-masked-police-filmed-carrying-brutal-beatings/

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