Bulgaria declares partial state of emergency due to migratory pressure

 

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The state of “partial emergency” declared by the Bulgarian authorities to deal with refugee/immigrant flows is being extended to other areas along the Bulgarian-Turkish land border.

At the same time, security measures were also increased on the coast of the Black Sea, where a boat transporting illegal immigrants from Turkey was detected yesterday.

It is the first time that the country has imposed a partial state of emergency for this reason, and it is because the Bulgarian Interior Minister, Ivan Demerdzhiev, affirms that the wave of illegal immigrants entering the country is growing every day.

With this measure, it is expected to carry out repairs to the forest roads that lead to the border crossing and improve coordination with neighboring countries.

“Most of the time they cross our border with ladders, which they use to jump over the fence. At the moment, we have done everything possible and necessary,” he says. Demerdzhiev.

He explains that normally they have the help of Turkey, but that after the meetings he has had with the Turkish Interior Minister and the Greek Interior Minister, “both coordination and mutual assistance between the services of the different countries will be much better”. “In this way, we will be able to dissuade a much larger part of the migrants before crossing the border,” concludes the minister.

He said that the measures to guard Bulgaria’s maritime space will be strengthened in connection with yesterday’s incident with the arrest of 38 migrants in a boat in the area of ​​Cape Shambla. All those on the boat were identified as Afghans and Syrians. Twenty-two are men, eight are women, eight are children, one of them an infant of a few months.

Bulgarian authorities have long reported increased migratory pressure along its 259 km border with Turkey.