EUROPE-MIGRANTS/BULGARIA Bulgaria tries to stem rising migrant influx at its borders

Record ID: 142883

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/BULGARIA Bulgaria tries to stem rising migrant influx at its borders
  • Date: 19th August 2015
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF OFFICER CHECKING TRUCK WITH SO-CALLED HEART BEAT DETECTOR
  • Embargoed: 3rd September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Bulgaria
  • Country: Bulgaria
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA58VK32HP2DVMJ5AMFM9TXA2AY
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Bulgaria has beefed up its border police, installed cameras and motion censors, and is extending a security fence that will cover 160 km. (100 miles) of its border with Turkey, and yet more and more migrants keep arriving.
    From Syria or Afghanistan, many are fleeing conflict and poverty and hope to use the Balkan country as a gateway to a more prosperous life elsewhere in Europe.
    Though not on the frontline of the migrant crisis like neighbouring Greece and Hungary, Bulgaria, the poorest member of the European Union, is growing anxious as the flow of arrivals keeps rising.
    At the border checkpoint of Lesovo, there were no scenes of migrants scrambling onto trucks or scuffling with police, the likes of which were seen in France or on some Greek islands this year. The number of migrants arriving in Bulgaria is still comparatively small.
    But the number of migrants coming into Bulgaria has nevertheless jumped to 25,000 in the past two years, which is as many people as in the previous two decades combined.
    On Tuesday (August 18), a long queue of trucks waited under the scorching sun at a checkpoint in Lesovo, which lies on the border with Turkey. Police searched each truck for stowaways using cameras, oxygen and heart beat detectors.
    Bulgaria has already sent hundreds of additional police officers to guard the border and erected a 30-km. fence in a mountainous area used by smugglers and human traffickers.
    However, since the first stretch of the fence was built last year and border monitoring boosted, the number of refugees trying to enter the country hidden in trucks and trains has risen.
    Senior inspector at Lesovo checkpoint, Nikolai Dimitrov said that they had detained about 750 illegal migrants since the beginning of the year.
    "The purpose of all police work at the border is to create a respect for the law. The purpose of traffickers is to smuggle immigrants illegally. All additional police measures, like the fence and increased border policing are aimed at stopping illegal activities," he said.
    Bulgaria already dispatched hundreds of additional police officers to guard the border and erected a 30-km. fence to deter people smugglers. The fence is being extended by another 130 km.
    Human rights groups and the United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR have criticised the border fence, saying that barriers will not stop the refugee inflow. Hungary is also building a security fence on its border with Serbia.
    However, for many in Bulgaria, with its population of 7.2 million, there are fears the country will be unable to cope with more migrants, even if most of them do not want to stay but will try to make it to richer countries such as Germany or Sweden.
    One migrant from Syria, George al Aylo Yosef, said that he had bypassed the fence and driven through the forest.
    He also interpreted for 50-year-old Mohammed Hersen from Syria, who along with his six children are among 300 refugees awaiting their clearance at Pastrogor, a transit refugee centre in southern Bulgaria, close to the border with Turkey.
    "They give salaries to all people in Germany, here no salary," Hersen said, according to the translation.
    Bulgaria depends on EU financial support to receive and provide shelter, medical care and food for over 3,500 refugees housed in camps, and has already used 80 percent of the 4.2 million euros it received to that end.
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