At first, the Bulgarian police found two bodies in the near of the village Archar (1). The dead people are belonging to a group that tried to cross the Danube with two boats from Bulgaria to Romania, on the 8th of September 2016. One boat capsized and its passengers fell into the water. The police is still searching for more dead bodies. After four migrants from Iraq were arrested on the Bulgarian island of Dobrina, the Bulgarian police found another dead body in the Danube, 40 km away of Archar. The Director of the Regional Directorate Border Police, Dimitar Chorbadzhiev, stated that another four people are still missing. Yet, it is not clear if the third dead person is belonging to the group of migrants. On the 14th of September, another dead body was found.
The Bulgarian journalist, Mariya Cheresheva summarizes in the Balkan Insight, that it is still not clear why this case was reported to the public by the Bulgarian authorities, so lately. She quotes a spokes person of the Bulgarian border police, that “not reporting on accidents is a policy of the press centre”.
Since days, the flow of migrants going via Romania is growing. A source from the Romanian side reported recently that on the Romanian-Serbian border, police and gendarms were installed with more equipment, “including night vision“, „more patrols with dogs“ and “an additional helicopter for surveillance“. The control between the Bulgarian-Serbian border was reinforced, as well. But this measures seem to be not enough. In a recent speech, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he wants to “see at least 200 extra border guards and 50 extra vehicles deployed at the Bulgarian external borders as of October.“
The dead migrants are the brutal result of the highly militarized EU-Border regime, where people on the run try to make their way from the European periphery in the direction of Central Europe.