Tomorrow, the 22rd of November 2016, the camp in Harmanli will be functioning as a closed refugee camp. While the Deputy Minister of Health Vanio Sharkov announced the closing as a temporally one, after a meeting of the chairwoman of the State Agency for Refugees (SAR), Petia Parvanova and Chief State Health Inspector Angel Kanchev, but did not say how long it would take. After several protests of inhabitants of the city, right wing groups and parties, who stated that they are worried about a possible infection, the authorities bow to their pressure. The whole refugee center will be put under quarantine, although not everybody in the camp is ill.
Volunteers criticize that the Ministry of Health was informed already two month ago about the problem of scabies and fleas in the camp. At the moment there is a lack of hot water, heating, sheets and hygiene products in the camp. Now, more than 3000 people live in Harmanli’s refugee camp, some of them even sleep on the floor without mattresses. Already on October 24, there was a protest staged by migrants in the camp about its conditions. Bordermonitoring Bulgaria (BMB) calls the SAR and the Ministry of Health to fulfill its job and take care on the hygiene and general maintenance of the inhabitants, who are living in the camp.