A pushback - as described in Omar's testimony - is the practice of forcibly removing a person across a border without allowing the person the opportunity to claim asylum. The practice is illegal in both EU and international law. Yet they are commonplace and carried out systematically at EU and non-EU borders within the so-called ‘Western Balkan Route’. 

Pushbacks are characterised by violence, frequently to a level that amounts to torture. 

We understand pushbacks to be one of the de facto deterrent measures of the EU’s border regime.  Crucially, surveillance technologies available to border authorities can and continue to facilitate pushbacks, by aiding the detection of people crossing borders irregularly. This was the case in Omar’s testimony.

As an external border of the EU, the area of land between Bulgaria and Türkiye - despite being largely uninhabited - is significant, as it is within this landscape that we see the front line of EU politics subjecting the bodies and rights of people on the move to violence. 

The Bulgarian - Turkish border is often cited as one of the most dangerous border crossing points. Though documentation is difficult in this region, people who crossed this border area describe it as particularly violent and deadly. Although testimonies of pushbacks date back to 2013, until 2021, it was not the most used route into the EU. People more often crossed from Türkiye to Greece via the region of Evros. When pushbacks became more systematic and violent in Evros, the number of border apprehensions and asylum applications at the Bulgarian - Turkish border noticeably increased from 2021, suggesting a shift in the route. Yet, so did the number of pushbacks. Deterrence  practices particularly seemed to intensify around 2023, the start of the so-called Pilot project. The pilot project was launched by the EU Commission to prepare Bulgaria's Schengen Accession, by strengthening border and migration management and preventing irregular arrivals. At the end of  2024, Bulgarian border police proudly announced that in 2023 alone around 185 000 attempts to “illegally enter the country” were deterred, most of those apprehended and pushed back directly at the border. Bulgaria joined Schengen on the 1st of January 2025.


The pilot project was accompanied by significant investments in border surveillance capacities to support apprehension, deterrence and returns. While Bulgaria had already set up a so-called “Integrated Border Surveillance System” including stationary surveillance towers and thermal imaging cameras, further EU Funding was made loose to enhance technical capacities and specifically to adapt to difficult mountainous terrain like that in Strandzha national park. The pilot project offered an additional 70 million euros on top of agreed Border Management and Visa Policy Instrument (BMVI) funding, citing specifically the need for the fortification of the Bulgarian-Turkish border. This was granted on top of already pre-approved 193.5 million Euros.

A look at the EU tenders portal reveals the strategic goals for technologies that are not only adapted to difficult terrain but seamless and invisible to those attempting the dangerous cross.

In early 2024, various testimonies from different people mentioned some kind of wire, sometimes underground or hidden in bushes, that people thought may have detected their movement or electrocuted them: nearly invisible infrastructure that would signal irregular movements to border authorities? 

"We have testimonies from people who see them with their eyes, but from research we know  there is a different type that is hiding underground and they are not visible. This is being used widely."

A 2023 tender seems to solve the mystery of the “Strandzha Wire”: a contract of 6.5 million Euros for the development and maintenance of “3 pieces of Sensor Lines (SL) with a total length of 59 km, including a total of 1,117 pieces of uncooled thermal imaging cameras with analytical software for motion detection in the monitoring area.” Although it was never made public who the contract was awarded to, the description mirrors technology presented by the US security company Sintela at the World Border Security, who developed sensory wires buried 0.5 meters under ground, with sensors placed every 5 meters to detect movements. Similar technology seems to now be produced by the Sofia-based company GlobalSat who were previously awarded contracts by the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior.

Beyond underground wires, advanced so-called “tactical” drones were deemed to be appropriate to navigate complex terrain of Bulgarian borders and advance Bulgarian surveillance capacities. Since the Pilot Project was deemed a success and upgraded to a ‘cooperation framework’, more funding was made available in March 2024. Soon after, Frontex launched a tender for 3 million Euros for a “pilot project for services of tactical land border and coastal surveillance with Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS)” with “long endurance and reduced logistic footprint.”

One year later, Bulgaria is now a full member of the Schengen Area. In a live orchestrated performance, Frontex and Bulgarian border authorities present the first tactical drone - which can detect and alert about “cross-border crime”, navigate autonomously through forest and difficult terrain and fly for long stretches at a time. Global Sat, the same company likely involved in the underground wire, Shield AI and Dat Con were awarded contracts to further develop and test the drones.
 

Just weeks before the new tactical drone presentation, the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances concluded its visit to Bulgaria. 

The Group’s report is a shocking account of the reality of the Bulgarian-Turkish border: an estimated 1,135 migrants held in secret detention and many more going missing while trying to avoid being pushed back.

Despite millions of Euros worth in surveillance cameras, underground wires and tactical drones lining the dangerous border - technology that can supposedly see various kilometres into the dark - people regularly go missing and life-saving search and rescue missions simply don’t happen. 

In their report, the working group says: “Not only do Bulgarian authorities fail to organize search and rescue missions, but they also stop and prevent civil society from conducting them. In some cases, this had led to the deaths of migrants”

“In the old law, they were criminalizing people  who had a benefit from hosting or moving undocumented people in Bulgarian territory. But now, any type of help is a crime. According to the border police, giving people on the move food or water, even in a crisis, is a crime.” 

When searching for disappeared loved ones, relatives cannot rely on state information and often turn to social media platforms.

A Lighthouse investigation confirmed that, even when people are assumed dead, families have to pay cash bribes or extortionate sums of money to be able to check the bodies.

SERBIA

For the second half of the episode we will shift our focus north, one border closer to Western Europe, to Serbia,  a non-EU nation, situated along the so-called ‘Western Balkan route’. 

Throughout the remainder of this episode and in part two, by focusing on the conditions of border surveillance at Serbian borders, we investigate how the EU instrumentalises the European periphery within its so-called “border management strategy”. We attempt to  some light on how the EU externalised border in Serbia impacts the lived experiences of people on the move.

What you will hear now is an extract from the daily report of INDIGO - a UNHCR partner organisation who provides support for minors, youth, and parents or guardians who are registered in State facilities in southern Serbia. This extract has been somewhat censored and refined for clarity.

“During the monitoring, we noticed a new group of people in the camp. After approaching the group, we spoke to an adult from Afghanistan who knew how to speak English well. He told us that he and a group of 37 others had been held captive in the forest on the Serbian side of the Bulgarian-Serbian border.

They had been moving through the forest after crossing the border during the night, when they were intercepted by a gang of seven armed men. Some of the group members managed to escape but 25 people were still captured. The gang were armed with 2 automatic rifles, 2 pistols, and three had knives.

The group of 25 people were held captive in the forest for 2 nights and a day. The gang members demanded that captives call their families and tell them to send money to the accounts given to them by the gang members, otherwise, they would be tortured and killed. The gang members beat them with their hands and feet. 

During the second day of their captivity, after seeing drones flying in the sky, the gang members as well as some of the captured people ran away. 

18 people from his group who stayed and waited for the police to enter the forest were transferred to Pirot Reception and Transit Centre (RTC). In Pirot, some of the freed hostages gave statements and all of them had their fingerprints taken. The man also told me that 4 minors in the group were registered as adults by the police, who were found and identified immediately after I finished the interview with him.”

As you heard, the report, taken on the 27th of June 2024, highlights not only some of the technologies available to Serbian border police - in this case drones - but also an instance of kidnapping. In addition to the violence that people on the move are subjected to directly by state authorities while traveling in the Western Balkans, gang violence, specifically in the form of kidnappings, though not new, is increasingly reported to occur in border areas. Many people have reported severe abuse during the time they are held until families can pay a ransom for their release.

In fact, following the large-scale and violent policing operation that was carried out by Serbian state authorities during the winter of 2023 - which will be referenced later in this episode - NGO teams who work directly with people on the move in the country have heard an increasing amount of reports from people subjected to kidnapping scenarios. 

We understand this increase in reported kidnappings to have happened in response to the rising policing of people's movement throughout the territory that followed the special operation. Intensified policing forced people to use more clandestine methods of travel, and resulted in an overall reduction in the number of people moving through Serbia to seek sanctuary in the EU.

In turn, this both bestowed more control to the gangs over people’s travel, as movement became more hidden. The overall reduction in movement also led to a decrease in the amount of profit gangs were making at Serbia’s borders. We believe the combination of these factors created both the conditions and motivation for gangs to increasingly use methods of kidnapping, as a means to make up for “losses”, without increasing the criminal risk of their activities. 

As is almost always the case, policing and military interventions at border areas push the most vulnerable people into even more vulnerable circumstances, whilst simultaneously bestowing more power to the gangs they claim to suppress.

Going back to tech. Alongside Serbia’s border with Bulgaria, the use of drones is similarly reported on the borders it shares with Hungary and North Macedonia. It is no coincidence that these border areas are synonymous with the violent pushbacks that have been reported on Serbia’s borders for years.

During a period of monitoring over the winter of 2024, people on the move reported seeing drones flying over the border area between Serbia and Hungary almost daily. On occasion, it was reported that a drone sighting was followed by police apprehension only minutes later. Moreover, in November of 2024, team members doing monitoring work reported seeing Serbian national police officers in possession of a handheld remote interface and the drone itself seen in the back of a police vehicle. People on the move reported the anxiety and vulnerabilities caused by technological surveillance of this kind.

FRONTEX

Frontex, the EU’s deeply problematic border policing agency, is another possible avenue that gets technology onto Serbia’s borders.

Subsequent candidacy reports have pushed for initial and extended status agreements between Serbia and Frontex. Following an extended agreement negotiated in 2024, Frontex are able to operationally deploy personnel throughout the territory of Serbia. October 2025 has seen Frontex officers rolled out on the Serbian / Bosnian border - according to BVMN network members working in Serbia. Due to the lack of transparency in agreements between Serbia and Frontex, it is not clear what the role of the agency is in the region, and whether or not a legal framework exists for them to use or provide Serbian border authorities access to the deep arsenal of surveillance tech that we know Frontex is in possession of. The status agreement ambiguously declares that Frontex can “provide technical & operational assistance” within the definition of a “joint operation” between Serbian authorities and the agency. 

Responses to Freedom of Information requests to the agency have maintained that specific operational activities are classified, therefore whether or not provisions of “technical & operational assistance” refer to use of the various surveillance technologies available to Frontex remains opaque.

HOW TO EXTERNALISE THE BORDER REGIME?

In this following section of the episode we will frame the EU’s candidacy mechanisms as the imperial practices that they are.

IPA funding and associated EU membership candidacy schemes are mechanisms that both practically establish, and legitimize the externalisation of the EU's border regime in Western Balkan countries - by creating high tech, militarised borders external to the EU or  facilitating the deployment of EU policing personnel on non-EU borders. These mechanisms effectively widen the extent of the EU’s external border - expanding the walls of Fortress Europe.

This is an inherently imperial practice, not only from the perspective that the EU border management is clearly attempting to prevent movement of people from the Global South toward the Global North by means of deterrence, surveillance, and violence in various capacities, but also because this is done through the exploitation of inter-European relations. 

For example, IPA funding and EU candidacy mechanisms arguably take advantage of the wealth and power dynamics existing between the EU and the Balkan countries on the EU periphery, countries that, to some extent, are still socially and economically recovering from post-Yugoslavian regional conflicts and traumas. The exploitation of these dynamics allows the EU to push its border management agenda externally through policy and procurement.

The Serbian situation in relation to the EU is not unique. All candidacy countries that are direct beneficiaries of IPA funding are located on variations of Western Balkan migration routes toward Europe - Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Türkiye. All these countries have had or have the potential to acquire funding for the provision of technologies used for detection and deterrence at their borders, enabled by their candidacy status and funded by IPA.

Additionally IPA funding is also provided through specific multi-country or regional programmes.

An example of a multi-country programme that falls within IPA funding is the Interreg IPA Romania-Serbia Programme.

The project states its three priorities as: 

• environmental protection & risk management-
• social and economic development
• increasing border management capacity.

As part of the third priority, ‘Investments in infrastructure and equipment for effective border surveillance’ is highlighted as a specific objective. As a result, the programme has put forward multiple tenders for the procurement of equipment such as aerial surveillance drones, vehicles, patrol boats, and various other equipment and infrastructure to be used by either the Romanian or Serbian border authorities. This equipment will be used to surveil borders between those territories, including a stretch of the Danube that acts as a wet border.

Although not the most common migration route in the Western Balkans, Romania’s recent full Schengen accession heightens the significance of the Serbian and Romanian border with regards to migration as both an external border of the EU and of the Schengen block. The Romania-Serbia IPA-funded programme shows us that the EU is willing to invest in borders that are seldom crossed by people on the move, so that they are as militarised with surveillance technology and infrastructure as those situated on more traditional migration routes.

While, the PR rhetoric of cross-border projects like this is dominated by phrases such as ‘increasing the social cohesion between nations’, and ‘increasing the biodiversity of border areas’, in reality, the programme is instrumentalised to provide high-tech equipment for border authorities. This is tech known to be used to facilitate violent human rights violations, such as pushbacks, directly provided to the border authorities that have been known to execute these violations. 

We will now be looking at trends related to how EU border externalisation is performed in Western Balkan countries.

When we compare Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina, both candidacy countries situated on the EU’s external borders, with regards to their progress down the hypothetical road to EU accession and, in turn, to their role within the EU’s border regime, we can see that Serbia is further along this path, and may thus serve somewhat as a model for EU border externalisation in so-called ‘third countries’. For example, in Serbia, status agreements with Frontex have been well established and subsequently developed for a while, allowing Frontex operations to occur on Serbian borders for years. Meanwhile, Bosnia signed the first status agreement that will allow for the deployment of Frontex officers in its territory in June 2025.

We can also observe important similarities in the pathways followed by both countries regarding changes to the systems of reception facilities for refugees and asylum-seekers, as pushed by the EU in candidacy reports. In Bosnia, candidacy reports have requested that a state agency maintains control of reception facilities, and thus of all the information that passes through the centres, including any biometric data that is required of people on the move. In recent years, this has resulted in a transition from IOM-run refugee camps to facilities managed by the SFA or Service for Foreigners’ Affairs, which is under the authority of the Bosnian Ministry of Security. 

This has been the case in Serbia for years, with reception and accommodation facilities run by the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees, the state agency responsible for matters of migration and asylum.

AUDIO

What you just heard was the synchronised audio of what was likely a directional sonic weapon used against protesters in Belgrade. 

This audio was extracted and synchronised from videos taken by Serbian citizens attending the March 2025 blockade of the city in support of anti-government protests, by Earshot NGO.

Earshot’s investigation into the incident identified a correlation between the experiences of earwitnesses to the sonic attack and the acoustic behaviour of a sonic weapon such as an Long-Range-Acoustic-Device or LRAD.

However this is not the first time a sonic weapon has been reported to be used by the state in Serbia. Over a year earlier, in November 2023 - during the peak of the large-scale policing operation that destroyed all informal living sites and violently removed all people on the move from border areas near Hungary, BVMN reported the use of a handheld device producing similarly aggressive sounds used against people on the move. 

In this instance, the sonic weapon was used during the eviction of an informal living site near the city of Sombor, next to borders with both Hungary and Croatia. Police vehicles had formed a perimeter around the living site, whilst other vehicles and officers raided the location. It appeared that the sonic weapon was used as a means to speed up the eviction process, by frightening and confusing the people who were staying at the living site,  so that the Serbian police could apprehend them more easily. 

Other than the repeated use of sonic weapons against civilians by the Serbian state, what these instances show us is, firstly, how responses differ to the news of people on the move or people from the global south being subjected to state violence, compared to white Europeans. 

Nearly 2 years ago, when BVMN reported on sonic violence against people on the move, frankly, no one cared. A year later, when similar technologies are used against the general population, it is taken more seriously, as should be the case in both instances. 

Secondly, these two events act as an example of what is consensus amongst many who have researched the use of invasive technologies against people on the move, who have found that, in some cases, technologies are first tested on populations of people on the move before the same tech is used against the general population. For example, in the UK, facial recognition technologies have been used to surveil people seeking asylum as far back as 2022. Now, in 2025, we see similar technologies used increasingly on the general public within public policing operations.

This understanding that the body can be used as a laboratory to develop technologies of surveillance and methods of policing populations is deeply rooted in colonial histories. Methods such as fingerprinting and photo ID’s - that see widespread use today - were initially pioneered by the likes of French colonial authorities in West Africa, and the British empire in India and Kenya. The same nations who developed methods of surveillance within a colonial setting, are the ones who are driving the externalisation of border management past the boundaries of Europe.

SHOWNOTES

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