Ten refugees from Afghanistan were injured and one died after their car overturned near the Aldomirovo swamp in the Dragoman region. The driver ignored a police sign of the border police and crushed against a concrete block. Six migrants were taken to the ISUL hospital, four to the „Pirogov“ hospital and another four to the UMBAL „St. Anna“ hospital. In the last days several drivers were stopped, who carried refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.
Such incidents happen regularly in Bulgaria during the last months. During a crash in February 2023 one refugee from Afghanistan died by the end of February. In the same month 18 refugees were found dead near Sofia. In the year of 2022 the numbers of the “irregular apprehended migrants in Bulgaria“ increased from 10,799 (in 2021) to 16,767.
Iliana Savova, the Director of the Refugee and Migrant Legal Programme at the Bulgarian
Helsinki Committee (BHC), wrote in her new report, which was published together with the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), that in the same year 5,268 pushbacks were affecting 87,647 people. Still many refugees don’t want to stay in Bulgaria. 46% of the asylum applications were not discontinued, because the appliers were fleeing to another country afterwards.